Leave It to Beaver

Bomb Rating: 

How can it not dawn on you during the filming of a "Leave it to Beaver" movie that your commercial Hollywood existence has rotted your soul and left you a hollow puppet of the drooling masses?

What kind of six-toed loser takes this sort of job anyway? I swear to God, if you're director Andy Cadiff how can it not dawn on you during the filming of a "Leave it to Beaver" movie that your commercial Hollywood existence has rotted your soul and left you a hollow puppet of the drooling masses? How can you not start each day by throwing the danish tray full force into the set, dropping to your knees and screaming in anguish, "What have I done with my life?" as crullers and long johns tumble to earth around you?

Apparently, Andy Cadiff has found a way. Andy, whose last gig was directing and producing "Home Improvement," actually has the audacity to include a scene of Ward (Christopher McDonald) and June Cleaver (Janine Turner) watching none other than "Home Improvement" and laughing joyously. Yes, Andy has been dipped in shit and has elected to pass the time by rolling around in the chocolate sprinkles of oblivion.

Not that I want to see any of them, but there are really only three ways to do film versions of television shows: You can do it straight; you can wildly exaggerate the film or; you can opt for the sick and twisted version. Had Wally and the Beav gotten stranded in a Turkish prison, I might have stuck around for a second tub of popcorn, but unfortunately, everything is done straight and narrow.

The one bizarre twist: the casting of Janine Turner as June. Did I miss the original TV episode in which Wally, Eddie and the Beav go masturbate in the garage while watching Barbara Billingsley mow the lawn? The '50s may have been a darker time than we were led to believe.

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