Highly Overrated But Still Good

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

After being knocked to the ground by her brother who also vandalised her doll and shot her with his toy gun, a little girl develops some special powers which she then uses to get revenge against her annoying sibling. Bedhead is a little short Robert Rodriguez directed before he made his break through movie, the impressive lo-fi action movie El Mariachi (1992). This one was very much a family affair with Rodriguez siblings playing the parts. His sister Rebecca plays the main role and gives a thoroughly charming performance. Shot in black and white, with no synchronised sound and only clocking in at 8mins, this is very lo-fi stuff. It is essentially an unpretentious kid's movie, with a story which is playful and silly. But Rodriguez uses his limitations well to experiment with inventive camera-work and editing techniques, while incorporating a sense of humour throughout. Like most films of this very short time-frame, it is limited. But it is kind of a sweet natured and fun watch all the same.

Bedhead (1991) *** 1/2 (out of 4)This short film from Robert Rodriguez shows exactly what you can do with very little money but a lot of imagination. The story is about a little girl who is constantly being abused by her jerk older brother. His bad bedhead hair is where the title comes from and after being knocked to the ground the sister grows some special powers, which she is going to use to teach the brother a lesson.I don't know what the budget of this film was but it's obviously very small yet the director manages to show off how much talent he has. I watch a lot of these shorts and more often than not they're good movies but ever so often you find one where you can watch and see that the director would have a future in cinema. This is such an example because the story itself is just so creative and it's done in such a fashion that you can't help but smile at the revenge and also be impressed with the technical quality of the production. There's some terrific editing and some great camera-work, two things that would become a staple for the director in future years.

Robert Rodriguez's first film is this eight-minute black-and-white short that stars his young brother and three of his sisters. This film was made prior to his Mexican mini-classic EL MARIACHI and years before the success of DESPERADO catapulted both he and star Antonio Banderas to stardom.BEDHEAD is frenetic comedy aimed squarely at children and is meant to be a light, slight bit of entertainment, nothing more. What stands out is Rodriguez as director – it's here that he got a chance to work on the style that he has become famous for, as he speeds up the film and shoots from all kinds of crazy camera angles, displaying a definite influence from Sam Raimi. The other notable thing is Rebecca Rodriguez, who gives a charming performance as the narrator/heroine of the story.

As an amateur filmmaker myself, I can tell that this is exactly the kind of film that more talented young aspiring filmmakers come up with when they're attempting to break into the movie industry. Robert Rodriguez cuts every corner imaginable, as he also brilliantly did while later shooting El Mariachi, and comes up with a witty and technically impressive short film. The sheer simplicity with which Bedhead was made is perfectly clear from beginning to end, but it is still an impressive and entertaining film, which is a testament to the fact that big budgets do not equal good movies. There are so many people in this world who think that the bigger the budget for a movie is, the better the movie itself is, and that's one of the most foolish things I've ever heard. Listen to the director's commentary for El Mariachi and Rodriguez explains perfectly clearly why this is not at all true, and there are so many filmmakers that need to learn that (yeah that's you, Jerry Bruckheimer). Rodriguez casts a few members of his immediate family in what looks like a film that could have been carelessly filmed in an afternoon before dinner, but if you've had experience in filmmaking and know what goes into it, it's clear that there was much more put into the film than that and it says something about Rodriguez's filmmaking talent that he was able to make something so complex look so simple. Bedhead is a very short film but it tells a story, keeps you entertained, and teaches you something about filmmaking all at the same time. It's so refreshing to see a director who cares so much about the medium of film and who wants to spread that knowledge. If you take the time to watch the extra features on the El Mariachi/Desperado DVD, such as the director's commentaries and this short film and the 10 minute film school, it's clear that Rodriguez wants to get rid of a lot of the stupid, unnecessary fluff that's so prevalent in the movies. If there were more directors who made up for filmmaking difficulties with their own creativity, as Rodriguez does, rather than covering their shortcomings with sheer financial purging, the movie industry would be in much better shape right now.