KENNY & COMPANY (1976)

Written, Directed, Cinematography and Editor: Don Coscarelli Cast: Don McCann, Michael Baldwin, Jeff Roth, Reggie Bannister, S.T. Coscarelli Several days in the life of Kenny, a typical 12-year-old, and his friends. Kenny goes through all the activities that most of us went through as kids as he and his friends prepare for Halloween. Along the way, Kenny deals with such childhood issues as bullies and his first crush on a girl. This film is obviously a labor of love. Something more personal for it’s maker. A deeply felt film about the disappearance of adolescence. It is out and out pure no agenda. It just shows characters living their lives and in search of funa and adventure while delaing with the changing world that age brings Remember when you were a kid and everyday almost every experience was about learning something from it? Whether you intended to or not? Where you can look back now and see things you were concerned about back then are trivial now, but back then it felt deadly serious? Like it was the end of the world. A time where every new day was a new adventure and you had little worries and where your whims were taken care of by an adult? you had boundless energy and nothing but time where you were only beginning to learn the hard truths of life, love, death and heartbreak? Where fun could be had with the simplest of objects and a imagination? This film takes you to that time and more before video games and the internet took over. Where you played outside and used your imagination in your neighborhood. Where you knew most of your neighbors. When parents weren’t as overprotective and let you get your cuts and bruises along the way. This movie isn’t really plotted as it kind of just puts you in the atmosphere and world of the characters. Like a bunch of loose snippets of adventures experienced by a group of friends that feel strung together to make a full length feature. This is a fun film shot quick and on a low budget. That surprisingly is dealt with in a sensitive way. Showing kids not to always be so tough and terrible and shows them actually being emotional and sensitive. The film tries to fool you by it’s trailer making it seem more like a skateboard film for kids. There is skateboarding in the film. That is not what the movie hang onto it’s deeper than that. The score hits all the right notes emotional and funny in all the right places like the film. GRADE: B-