REVIEW: The Great Outdoors [1988]

“Let go of the rope” Most would probably call it lesser John Hughes—he wrote and produced with Howard Deutch taking the director’s chair—but The Great Outdoors will always hold a special place in my heart. If you asked me who John Candy was in 1990 I’d probably have said, “the guy from The Great Outdoors” even though Uncle Buck had been released and deservedly held as the better work. There was something about the comedy brought forth from nature that appealed to me as a kid who had never been…

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REVIEW: Hocus Pocus [1993]

“Winnie, do you want to hit me? Will that cheer you up?” What began as a script for a made-for-TV Disney Channel movie, Hocus Pocus found its way onto the right desk at the right time for the increased level of support necessary to transition it into a bona fide theatrical release. Sadly for all involved, though, the critics more or less hated it and the box office barely squeaked by its production budget. Yet somehow everyone I knew who had seen it as a child possessed a strange affinity…

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