'Bucky and the Squirrels' is a zany mockumentary filmed mostly in the Fox Cities in 2013. It's directed by Allan Katz. Trailer courtesy of Dauntless Studios. Dauntless Studios
It's been a long wait since a Hollywood crew came to Appleton for the production of "Bucky and the Squirrels," but the goofy documentary-style farce finally opened Friday on Marcus Theatres locations around Wisconsin.
So now the question is: Is it any good?
The answer might depend on who you are. Indeed it is a goofy farce, this tale of a rock band from Appleton whose plane crashed in the 1960s, only for the fab four to be recovered and thawed out in modern times.
They're taken back to Appleton to regroup. The trouble is they're essentially toddlers again, trapped in their old form. They need to relearn how to eat, stand, walk — let alone play their one and only song, the hit "Do the Squirrel."
Jill Lover, a Green Bay native and Lawrence grad who's shown up in "Mom," "Nash Bridges" and "My Wife and Kids," plays psychologist Laura Adams, tasked with getting them back on their feet (at first, literally) and then back on the stage to earn money after the IRS comes calling. (They didn't pay their taxes in 1968, you see. And 50 years of interest isn't kind.)
It's a ridiculous premise, of course, and the film's 83 minutes are packed with the appropriate abundance of ridiculousness. That's the whole point. Writer and director Allan Katz, a veteran of "M*A*S*H," "Roseanne," "Blossom" and others, said the target audience is teenagers and Baby Boomers. It might be a little safer to swap teenagers for pre-teens — the level of silliness and safety of it all probably hits youngsters better than Doug the drummer can strike a cymbal.
With a PG rating, "Bucky and the Squirrels" is about as family-friendly as it gets and should be a fun little trip for those turned off by the crudeness of most modern big-screen comedies. (The closest it gets to edgy is a quick gag tied to Harvey Weinstein, which would have been put in place several years before, well, you know.)
For much of the Squirrels' story, they're reduced to wobbly dopes who slowly regain their wits. Or what wits they had. Still, Katz never messes with meanness and avoids the poke-fun-at-the-locals trap a lot of Midwestern drop-ins resort to. It's all harmless fun.
Will Millennials and Gen Xers be into it? If they get a kick out of the four man-babies mauling each other over a chocolate bar and squirming around a hospital room in diapers, then yes. Although some of the bits may drag on a bit too long for some YouTube and GIF-ravaged attention spans.
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It also serves as a nice spotlight for Lawrence University and, more broadly, the city of Appleton. It was filmed here during the back half of 2013, and many of the locations will be familiar. They're all over the Lawrence campus, including the climactic performance scene in Stansbury Theatre. There's a glimpse of Mill Creek. There's a scene in Beatnik Betty's Resale Butik. And Top Spins, the small record shop next to Houdini Plaza, gets transformed into Squirrelmania, where we meet up with the Squirrels' former manager, Mort Fishbeck (Katz, sporting the most awful rug you'll ever lay eyes on).
The glue that holds the silliness together is Henry Dittman as ACN News correspondent Steve Schmidt. He's dispatched to the Lawrence University campus to cover the Squirrels' story only to get increasingly irritated by the stupidity that surrounds him.
There also are cameos from the likes of Mike Farrell, Jason Alexander, Richard Lewis and Raquel Castro. While each are amusing to an extent, their interviews do feel a little shoe-horned in — although with friends like these, it's hard to blame Katz for wanting to sprinkle in a little bit of Hollywood.
All of the low-budget shenanigans, from the ACN News team that never seems to have their act together, the dumb yet charming bits of physical comedy throughout and the smart writing that's just below the surface make for a film that doesn't set the expectations too high — then exceeds them.
STORY OF THE SQUIRRELS
“Bucky and the Squirrels” is the story of a rock band from Appleton that recorded a hit song in the late 1960s. The four former Lawrence University students wind up in a plane crash in the Swiss Alps and aren’t found for 50 years. Once airlifted back to Appleton and thawed out at Appleton Cryonics, they realize they’re in deep debt to the IRS. They attempt to resurrect their music careers to pay off 50 years of back taxes. The goofy documentary-style comedy was filmed mostly in Appleton in 2013. Among its stars is Jill Lover, a Green Bay native and Lawrence grad. Allan Katz, an Emmy Award-nominated writer and producer based in Los Angeles, directed the movie. It opened Friday in theaters across Wisconsin. In the Fox Cities, it's playing at both Marcus Theatre locations.