Buddy

I watched Buddy last night. Here's my review

Here's the thing. I'm old enough that I watched just a whole hell of a lot of Barney because my sister was exactly the right age for Barney to hit hard. She was right into Barney. I saw a lot of Barney.

And, like many creative people in situations where they're watching a lot of children's television, it gets easy to think about the ways it could become dark and twisted and awesome.

In comes Casper Kelly, of Too Many Cooks fame, which, if you haven't watched Too Many Cooks, you need to stop what you're doing, get down upon your knees, I've got a message for you that you better believe believe believe believe...

wait, sorry, I'm listening to music as I write this.

Seriously though, you should watch Too Many Cooks.

So yeah, Casper Kelly shows up and makes Buddy, a movie about a Barney-esque children's show by way of Stephen King. Not that it's very Stephen King like, but it is very dark, and very violent, and very awesome.

The thing that I really love about it is that it uses your understanding of what they're doing against you. It subverts itself. It's like, here's Barney if Barney was a psychotic monster. But then it takes a turn, then another turn, then it's get fucking weird, and then it gets weirder. By the end of it, I was so happy that I'd had that experience. It was silly, it was weird, and it was so much fun.

Uncomfortable, at times, but also very fun. I laughed a lot, watching this movie, and I really enjoyed hearing the audience react to the same things I was reacting to. It's been a while since I've been to a movie where I really noticed how the audience responded to what we were seeing. It was great.

So, I had to look it up, but they filmed this movie with modern digital cameras, but used period lighting and set design and costumes, to replicate the style 90s era children's shows. It doesn't just take from Barney. There's a bit of Pee-Wee's Playhouse in there, there's a bit of The Neighborhood of Make Believe from Mr. Rogers, a bit of Shining Time Station. Basically, if you were around a kid in the 90s, then you probably watched something like this.

Also I didn't even know that Cristin Milioti AKA the Penguin lady was in this! She's so incredible and I love her face. I want her to be in everything.

Keegan-Michael Key does Buddy's voice, and gives a terrifying and hilarious performance. There's also an extremely memorable cameo by a very famous brother that will remain nameless for spoilers sake.

All said and done, Buddy is an experience. It's a cinematic experience, that probably isn't for everyone. No, it's definitely not for everyone, but it certainly was for me. I really liked it.

4 stars!