Cynical Cinema

I remember, as a kid, going to the library and checking out the giant French Lucky Luke comic books. I read every single one the library had, and so began my infatuation with Western culture. Luke, the fastest gun in the West, and his adventures in continuously catching the notorious Dalton gang proved to be a terrific way to entertain myself over the course of a weekend, and also a great way to learn French. Now, the comic book series comes to DVD in the movie Lucky Luke: Go West, The Movie, out Tuesday August 26th from Alliance Films.

The movie is available in both French and English, and hilariously there is a third language available on the DVD - Quebecois. So you can watch in either French, or Quebecois, depending on your preference. I couldn’t tell the difference, so I chose “French”. The movie is much like the comic books. Silly, over-the-top, and yet somehow still steeped in Western lore. Luke, escorting a group of settlers from New York to California, has the Dalton gang in tow and in captivity. The Daltons, obeying their own code of the West, resent the attempts of the evil guy to break them out and set them free. They’ll free themselves, you see. They don’t need any help. Some funny pop culture references are thrown in throughout the film - an Indian attack on the caravan is represented from overhead like an old-fashioned musical dance number. Luke, after delivering the Daltons to the New York City courthouse in a suit, ducks into a phone booth to quickly change into his cowboy outfit. And the Indian smoke signals are represented, for the modern audience, as emoticons.

Watching this DVD brought back a lot of pleasant childhood memories for me, and I recommend this film as a terrific way to teach French to your kids. Full of ridiculous humour and endless silly action, Lucky Luke: Go West is a throroughly worthwhile way to entertain yourself for a weekend. Or even two.

Wayside School is a popular kids’ TV show based on a series of popular kids’ books of the same name. Season One of Wayside School comes to DVD today, August 19th, from Paramount Home Entertainment. The best thing about the DVD is that it comes with the first volume of the books, Sideways Stories From Wayside School. I started flipping through the book as I put on the DVD, and before long I was completely engrossed. Thirty two-page stories from Wayside School, each one about one of the students on the thirtieth-story classroom at the school. You see, the school was supposed to be one floor, with thirty classrooms, but because of a design flaw, it ended up being thirty floors, each with one classroom…anyway.

The TV show features some Grade-A voice talent. Nancy Cartwright (voice of Bart Simpson and Ralph Wiggum, among others) does Maurecia, Mrs. Jewls and Dana. Phil LaMarr (famous from MAD TV) does the voice of Mr. Kidswatter, the principal. Other well-known voice actors include Tara Strong, Jason Marsden, and Terry McGurrin.

By the time I finished the book, I realized I had barely been paying attention to the TV show itself, and two episodes had already gone by. So I began paying attention. Where the book deals with each child in the classroom equally, the TV program focuses more on a few students, like Todd who is always getting into trouble, and Maurecia, who wears a helmet and roller skates at all times. The books are incredibly charming and ridiculous in a kid-logic sort of way, and the TV show comes close to capturing that spirit of silliness and twisted mayhem that the books do so well. With the packaging of Sideways Stories From Wayside School along with Wayside School: Season One on DVD, this is a great pickup for anyone with young kids.