The Brady Bunch Movie

Like Andrew Fleming’s recent Dick (a straight-to-video release in Holland, so rent it now!), this teen dream jumps into the 70s to talk about the 90s. The incredibly wholesome Brady family (remember the classic TV series The Brady Bunch?) wakes up in a world of hostile neighbours, business sharks, grunge music and social corrosion. By maniacally clinging to their sweet and sunny ways (and to 1971-style bubblegum music), these six teenagers and their parents can turn things around. As the German poet Olaf Möller has shown, director Betty Thomas’ small body of work already stands as a unique kind of media critique: Talking about 90s reality in consciously fable-like terms, she addresses a state of mass media delusion – Who needs to bother about reality if there’s always a TV family to save the day? (A.H.)