Secondhand Screenings Gone Wild!!!

Desperate times call for desperate measures… or something to that effect. It’s been two months since the screening well has hit a dry rock bottom, with less and less picture shows for our eyes to feast on. So, I took a “by all means necessary” approach to this batch of Secondhand Screenings, as I tasked six writers (including yours truly) to venture out in the world and bring me back some bizarre showings. Check every grandparents’ basement, every pawn shop and every bargain bin bottom for one apeshit presentation! Here’s what we found:

Disney’s Sing-Along Songs: Flik’s Musical Adventure in Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Director: Greg Gold
Walt Disney Home Video
Released: 06.08.1999

While you were playing checkers in the late ‘90s, the House of Mouse was playing chess on your child’s cranium. It’s 1998 and Walt DisneyWorld in Florida has had their exotic grand opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom — a thematic extension of hodgepodged African and Asian cultures to add on to the ever-growing amusement park. As a bit of subliminal message for those young impressionable minds, the Disney’s Sing-Along series released this 30-minute video to secretly promote three upcoming properties: The aforementioned theme park, the direct-to-tape sequel of The Lion King and Pixar’s A Bug’s Life. The actual plot, however, focuses on a group of kids as they venture into the wildlife pavilion of the Animal Kingdom to snapshot the most ferocious animal alive. Maybe my attention span was diluted when I was a kid, because I remember this video being extensively longer. However, I also don’t remember its mild touch of Asian racism, complete with bowing and a loud ass gong sound effect. Plus, Disney’s crammed public statement that humanity has the potential of being Earth’s most dangerous species is a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black. One of the world’s biggest companies with all its emissions and plastic waste telling us we need to be better? And I thought my jokes were bad… With that being said, I have a Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream sandwich and a Jeep driver’s seat in the Temple of The Forbidden Eye waiting for me in September. —Alton Barnhart 

Field of Dreams
Director: Phil Alden Robinson
Universal Pictures, Gordon Company
In Theaters: 04.21.1989

When I called my aunt and uncle to borrow some physical media for this assignment, I pictured rummaging through their well-organized but stuffed basement, fumbling through piles of old DVDs and VHS tapes. Turns out all they had were two movies on VHS: Field of Dreams and a documentary about the Chicago Cubs. My uncle David is an avid baseball fan, so I wasn’t much surprised by the selection. I chose Field of Dreams. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and has long been cemented in our collective cultural psyche, in both the realms of film and baseball. But focusing on one character in particular, some surprising themes come up. The wife of protagonist Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner), Annie (Amy Madigan), is the main reason rookie farmer Ray follows a nameless voice when it tells him to cut under his corn and build a baseball field. Annie and Ray met at UC Berkeley in the ‘60s. She still uses phrases like “far out” and even asks Ray if he thinks the voice is an acid flashback. The ultimate scene of the film is when she stands up at a school PTA meeting where some other parents are trying to ban books. One frazzled mother stands at the front waving around a text by Terence Mann (James Earl Jones), whose writing is said to have supported the Civil Rights movement and spoken against the Vietnam War. Annie proceeds to compare the other mom to a fascist Eva Braun, calling her a “Nazi cow” and raving about the Bill of Rights in an impassioned diatribe and appeal to the room. While much of the film is indeed about baseball, I’d say Annie is an unattributed star, not only in her support of Ray’s wacky fantasies, but also because she stands up to neo-fascism in America in a way that is far too relevant now. —Kyle Forbush

How the Garcia Girls Spent their Summer
Directors: Georgina Riedel & Rudi Berden
Maya Productions
Released: 05.16.2008

This film caught my eye for two reasons: It had my last name in the title and a young America Ferrera on the cover. Upon further research, I learned a few more interesting things about this movie. For example, while this movie premiered in the Moscow International Film Festival in 2005, it wasn’t given a full release until 2008. It is also Lucy Gallardo’s final role and it only has 21 reviews on Letterboxd (I guess we can make that 22 now). The film follows the three women of the Garcia family each at different points in their lives, while also exploring new intimate relationships. The best way I can sum up this movie would be like a woman’s version of Y tù mama tambìen, right down to the Marco Antonio Solìs needle drop. The film is very natural in the sense that it has no score; the only music heard throughout is diegetic. The story explores themes of sexuality, generational divides and gossip in a small town. It clocks in at just over two hours and while I did start to feel it in the final third, this movie just captured something very raw. The interspersed conversations between the old men reminiscing about their girlfriends and cars felt like I was sitting in the living room listening to my great uncles. The reality is there is a lot more I want to say about this film, and maybe that in itself is the only recommendation it needs. —Angela Garcia

Morons from Outer Space
Director: Mike Hodges
Universal Pictures
In Theaters: 09.20.1985

On the recovering Sunday that I watched this movie, I settled into my recliner with a snack and a sparkling water and pressed play on what I now regard as one of the worst movies I have ever seen. This movie, the British answer to universally loved film E.T., was actually so bad that it worsened my hangover — I was physically ill by the end of my viewing. This movie is a parody take on movies like E.T., in which aliens come to earth and a whole bunch of hijinks ensue before they are eventually recollected by their mothership and brought back to their home. The difference between E.T. and this movie, however, is that E.T. was actually special and had otherworldly abilities. The aliens in Morons from Outer Space, all sporting British accents, are just exceptionally stupid regular humans, and that is the concept of the entire film. Obviously I could’ve guessed that from the name, but I didn’t know how deep it ran. At one point, an alien is asked where he is from and all he can answer is, “Uhhhhhhh, I forget.” They actually made the aliens so stupid that the film is hard to watch. The only redeemable scenes in this movie are the ones that focus on Bernard, the alien separated from his friends and played by improv comedian Mel Smith. Had they cut out the entire rest of the movie and just featured Smith, I may have actually enjoyed myself. Thank God this movie only ran me two dollars, but even that feels like wasted capital at this point. —Cam Elliott 

The Invisible
Director: David S. Goyer
Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Birnbaum/Barber Productions
In Theaters: 04.27.2007

It’s no mystery how The Invisible wound up on the shelf of mid-2000s rejects at the Savers in Canyon Rim. After all, the DVD cover boasts: “From the producers of The Sixth Sense!” which couldn’t have been very convincing in 2007, let alone in 2025. Justin Chatwin (War of the Worlds, Dragonball Evolution) stars as Nick, a golden boy poet who gets his shit accidentally rocked by Annie, his troubled high school peer in a beanie, due to a misunderstanding regarding her various criminal activities. Realizing he’s not quite dead, Nick’s ghost(?) must try to manipulate his attempted murderer into revealing the location of his body to the police before it’s too late. If that sounds a little hard to follow, do not fret! All your favorite 2000s tropes are here to help you through it, like the ethnically questionable romance and a girl letting her hair down to reveal she’s been pretty the whole time. Can I say you’ll be on the edge of your seat as director David S. Goyer and co. desperately try to capture their contemporary teen audience via constant needle drops from Death Cab for Cutie, Syntax and more? Not really. What I can say is that the film will leave you with an ending so blatantly terrible, the only good feeling you’ll have left is reinvigorated nostalgia for Snow Patrol. Don’t be fooled, though! If there’s anything to be learned from The Invisible, it’s that maybe not everything from the 2000s needs revisiting. —Max Bennion

The 10th Kingdom
Directors: David Carson and Herbert Wise
Babelsberg Film und Fernsehen, Carnival Film & Television, Hallmark Entertainment
Released: 02.27.2000

Close friends and confidants know that there are two things I love when it comes to cinema: horrible yet heartfelt attempts at CGI and… PUPPETS! Upon learning this, my friend Riley’s eyes lit up and she declared that she had the three-disc, Hallmark-produced series of my dreams! The 10th Kingdom is a five-part mini-series with each episode running about two hours long. The premise is simple, à la Enchanted if it took place before 9/11: A young NYC waitress (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) and her father (John Larroquette) have their world turned upside down when a golden retriever, who’s actually a prince from the realm of the nine kingdoms, leads them through a magic mirror to his homeland, fantasy world containing your favorite cast of characters from beloved Brothers Grimm stories. This. Series. Has. Everything: crude humor with catchphrases like “Suck an Elf,” an all-star cast with the likes of Ed O’Neill and Warwick Davis, unique makeup and costume design along with an incredibly witty set design chock full of fun Easter eggs for all the hardcore classic fairytale lovers. While the majority of acting is cringe and over the top, in true Hallmark fashion, this series was such an unexpectedly thrilling little fantasy ride that all the other bits and bobs make up for it tenfold. It even won an Emmy back in the day, if that means anything to ya! So do yourself a favor: Huff and puff on down to your local thrift and grab yourself a three-disc copy today! —Yonni Uribe

Read more from Secondhand Screenings right here:
The Tubi-lar Side to Secondhand Screenings
The Saltiest Psuedo-Saints of Secondhand Screenings