When I praised Adventureland the other day in part because it reminded me of the kind of 80s movies no one makes anymore, I was thinking of Ferris Bueller or One Crazy Summer.  Gooby here is the flip-side of that coin, evoking a genre that rightfully died out 20 years ago.  It’s about a kid who befriends a teddy-bear like monster and they go on adventures – like a seriously ill-advised mashup of Mac & Me and Harry and the Hendersons.  The conflict of course is that he has to keep his monster a secret, because in the 80s it was always bad news when people found out you had a robot, alien, monster, or doll come-to-life for a friend, or when your wife the witch wouldn’t stop using her magical powers.  It’s creepy both because of the bizarreness of the plot, and because it just doesn’t seem like a good idea for your kids to watch movies about a special best friend who you can’t tell your parents about because he’s weird.

Believe it or not, this is a real movie, it’s playing at Cannes, it cost $6.5 million to make, and the director’s name is the impossible-to-make-up “Wilson Coneybeare.”  I need a drink.

[thank to my friends at ToplessRobot for the tip]