Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Yesterday we put a spotlight on Billy Wilder's The Apartment, so I figured it'd be pretty fun to segue from a big city apartment to a small town suburb.
Joe Dante's The 'Burbs is one of my favorite films of his. He's made a lot of films, most of which are appropriately adored, but some of which are unfairly overlooked. Matinee is one of those and so is The 'Burbs, which is a darkly black comedy about fearful, slightly ignorant, neighborhood people who suspect their new, foreign neighbors are up to no good.
What's great about this film is Tom Hanks plays Ray Petersen as the levelheaded one who can't ignore the mystery living next door to the point where he pretty much becomes as crazy as his crazy friend (Rick Ducommun's Art Weingartner) in his belief that the Klopeks are evil and not just weird.
The movie somehow satirizes the conspiracy theory nutbags while also making it okay to root for the dummies trying to uncover the mystery.
Today's pic comes from Joe Dante's Twitter. Dante's always been good about sharing BTS images. In the old run of the BTS column he very kindly provided me with a few never before published Gremlins shots. That guy's a true blue movie nerd, just like us.
Anyway, here's today's pic! That's Dante in the hat, btw.
Tomorrow's pic celebrates the relaunching of a geek favorite franchise that was announced today! See you guys then!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
