Bedhead (1991) Online

This movie can also be found on the Special Edition DVD of El Mariachi, along with his 10 Minute Film School on how he made El Mariachi on a budget of $7,000 (USD). Good, fun, silly movie that shows the early genius of Robert Rodriguez. Rather frenetic at times, it represents a prime example of what has become "stereotypical" camera work by Robert Rodriguez. Using his brothers and sisters in the cast, it's perfect for those who have always dreamed of revenge on our siblings for whatever "crime" they committed against us or our toys, and for all those little idiosyncrasies our siblings have that drive us crazy. Don't take it too seriously and have fun with it. Whether a fan of Rodriguez' work or as an instructor in film technique, this movie is worth watching.

This is an Extra on the EL Mariachi DVD. It's a great film. It's almost like a troma movie for children. This alone is worth getting the Mariachi DVD. plus the price you get Mariachi and desperado on the same disc for cheap. or at least I did.

The only place you're likely to see this is on the El Mariachi/Desperado DVD. You see, its a short black-and-white movie made by Robert Rodriguez - yes him!

Bedhead is just a bit of fun. The child actors are his siblings, and he just makes them play around to the basic plot while he films with his usual supercool camera angles and shots.

Nothing much, just a cool piece of entertainment. Its just the perfect length of time to watch - any longer and it would have been sh*te.

You know what is really fun? Choose a director you like, then trace the ideas you like about him back through two paths: the films by others that surely influenced him, and also back through his own earlier work. Like this.

I like Rodriguez. I do. I like the risks he takes, his proclivity to experiment, his notion about structure and reference in film. He is not yet on my "absolutely must see this" list but is well represented on the "worth watching" list.

The first "Spy Kids," "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," And his entry in "Four Rooms," showed a high degree of what I call folded, selfaware film-making. Spanish, without the prancing pretense of the French.

So go back with me to view this homemade short, featuring his kids and home videocam. It is simple, but you can already see his characteristic mix: Simple truths, including appropriate effects done cheaply. A world of magic. A world where children often center the narrative. A world where justice is built into the cosmos.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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.

I don't believe I knew of this short film before I got El Mariachi on DVD and found it among the special features. Rodriguez did it all by himself, with the cast consisting entirely of his siblings. The plot is simple and silly, but you find yourself watching it all, never particularly wanting it to end, and when it does, it hardly feels like any time has passed at all. Granted, not an awful lot of time *has* passed, but still. The pacing is perfect. The cinematography is great. The story-telling is relatively simple, but it works very well. Instead of giving up on having sound, or limiting it, on account of not having a camera that could record sound(I'm going to assume he did, as he describes having and using one such camera in making his feature debut, El Mariachi, which was made not long after this), Rodriguez creates all of the sound in post-production, and gives it a rather cartoon-y feel, one that is present in every facet of this production. The difficulty of dialog(as it must all be recorded separate from filming) is a problem he solves by making the dialog off-screen, and, whilst it is arguably a story-telling crutch, the narration works wonderfully well, and helps tell a story that could easily have taken far longer than 8 short minutes, ensuring a tight little short that does not overstay its welcome. The acting varies, but always works. The lead enunciates reasonably well, and good enough for all she says to be understood. The score, editing and camera angles create drama, and cheap effects sell the supernatural idea. There is some gross-out comedy, but very little. There is also some violence, and it is shown without the realistic outcome(not unlike, say, a Tom & Jerry cartoon). This short is undoubtedly created mainly for children, but adults can enjoy it too. You'll find the minutes flying by, and you may very well enjoy Rodriguez doing what he does best. I recommend this to any fan of Rodriguez, as well as children who have the sense of humor for it. 7/10

You might get the sense of Robert Rodriguez, if his college short film is the first time you're being exposed to his work, that he could be a near protégé of Sam Raimi. But if you've seen Bedhead after already seeing the bulk of his work (The Misbehavers, Mariachi films, at least one Spy Kids, From Dusk Till Dawn, even Sin City), you can tell a style already in camera and sense of humor being defined. The edge and crazy verve of comic-books get worked into almost all of Bedhead, a movie about kids that would have appeal for anyone who can find a smile for the endlessly tongue-in-cheek. Like the other short, Misbehavers, Rodriguez is totally in tune with the vendettas and plots waged between siblings, only here it's done in a fashion that's faster, more wicked, and with almost a morale that could land it on Nickelodeon.

There's also the outrageous to it, of course, but cranked to the demented once or twice, which lends it a more unique quality than other kid's short films. It's like something a kid might think up when bored in a class. That it's done with seemingly so little is also remarkable. I liked also how it was kept at a kind of innocent level, too, of kids being only so rotten towards each other, as kids can get. It's even sweet in it's crazy way, as Rodriguez's camera keeps getting strange angles and even stranger, more contorted angles and zooms and pans and even animation in the mix. The kids- Rodriguez's own family- are pretty good at being these exaggerated characters because there's a grounding to it that can be seen at the start and finish of the film. It's brief, to the point, and packs a neat little punch; one of the better student shorts I've maybe ever seen.

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.

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.

It's 1991, Robert Rodriguez is in his mid-20s and casts a whole bunch of his siblings for his very first movie, a nine-minute short film on a normal brother-sister relationship which takes a turn for the supernatural. It's in black and white just like the majority of his trademark film Sin City roughly 15 years later. When two siblings fight outside the house, the girl falls hard and awakes realizing something happened with her head when her brain hit the ground and all of a sudden she's able to move things with the power of her mind. She uses the newly-acquired ability to go full rampage on her brother and exact her revenge. However, in doing so, she falls again shortly after and may have lost her power again? Or has she?

Bedhead is a decent, occasionally funny effort that doesn't really hold a candle to much of what Rodriguez has done afterward though. Actually, I think it's a pretty nice watch for children even, maybe more than for adult, who may find the eating of a cockroach, the girl constantly flying through the air etc. funnier than people our age group. Recommended to Rodriguez completionists, otherwise you can give this one a pass.

A very clever short film by Robert Rodriguez. We studied this at school. It uses clever camera shots to cheat a lot of the filming and good uses of putting the tape in reverse (If you put it in slow motion you can see the fishing line when the cockroach crawls along the table). Although stop motion was used when the tap turned on. A fun filled comedy about a girl who is disturbed by her brother David(Bedhead) vandalizing her things. Anyone who likes Robert Rodriguez should see his amazing debut into film. Well worth watching very enjoyable

Overall a clever original film and i give it a 9/10

What better way is their to start off your career than with a black and white short film? Well, there's a lot better, but all of these filmmakers who's early films consisted of short, cheaply made films have left their fans with a treasure trove of their early work, and how they originally started their soon to be careers. "Bedhead" is an impressive looking short that fits in well with Rodriguez's company Los Hooligans which later just became known as Troublemaker.

The narrator of this story is a little girl in the hospital who bumped her head. She flashes back and tells us the story of when she bumped her head and gained psychic powers, and the ability to get anything she wanted. Her biggest pet peeve is her brother's awful bedhead, so her top priority with her powers is to remove his awful hair style.

This is just a cute little short. The plot is original enough, though somewhat reminiscent of the Twilight Zone. The acting from the kids is good. The synthesized music sounds professional. The opening animation is simple but cool looking. The direction is really interesting. Many shots can be compared to Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead II", with sped up shots and all kinds of interesting angles. Rodriguez outdid himself with the strange surreality of the direction and it looks great.

This isn't a perfect short, but it's a fun way of seeing early Rodrigguez and why he ended up the success that he is today.

My rating: *** out of ****. 9 mins.

The people most likely to be interested in watching this short film would be fans of Robert Rodriguez and thus would watch it looking for Rodriguez-style independent film-making. For those people, they'll get everything they want... fast-paced action, fast-paced camera movement, fun and funny storytelling, and a general sense of know-how often unseen in first-time shorts (and of course that's because it's not really a first-time short... see "Rebel without a Crew").

Those who happen to stumble across this film, though, won't have to be well versed in Rodriguez's style (and also, Rodriguez's style isn't a style that is that difficult to be well-versed in). It's still fun and fast-paced and funny. So there you go.

It's available on the El Mariachi DVD if anyone's interested in seeing it.

--PolarisDiB

A simple eight minute short which manages to demonstrate the unique style Rodriguez would soon become famous for. The special effects were well done, as was the camera work, complete with effective use of a multitude of angles and alternate speeds. The sound effects were also very well done, and I still can't figure out how he did many of them. While not his first film by a longshot (he made 30 other shorts before this, over a period of ten years) this was an obviously low budget production (he used his siblings for the actors). However, it did a brilliant job of showing off his potential, and, along with his first, ultra low budget feature film, he was able to get representation at ICM and became a major player in the Hollywood game.

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.

I was just reading the other review of this film and i had to comment on it.

"Bedhead" is a FRESHMAN film school project of Rodriguez. He did the whole thing for $800, which as a film student is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. (It's also his brother and sister, not children in it, but it's not really important.)

I highly recommend that anyone interested in making films should read his book, "Rebel without a Crew" and if you get a chance to see this film, don't pass it up.

Actually a simple, funny, and real low budget "try out" movie, probably his debut as well. The whole thing is in black and white, and it's so low budget he uses his own son and daughter for actor an actress.

And they both can act as well!

I saw the whole thing (doesn't take more than 30 minutes) on a laserdisc of El Mariachi.

This short film shows Rodriguez films' characterstics, fast, low budget, and unique camera works. The idea of this film is very original and fascinating. The acting is very good also. I love Rodriguez's action films but hopefully he will make more films like Bedhead for variety.

This short really doesn't look like it was intended for adult audiences and it also looks nothing like the later violent films that Robert Rodriguez was known for--such as EL MARIACHI and (yuck) PLANET TERROR. Early in his directing career, he was responsible for the Spy Kids films (the first of which was a lovely family movie--the others, to be nice, I just won't mention) and so this short seems to fit this early Rodriguez style quite nicely.

Filmed in black and white with very simple sets and voice-overs instead of dialog, the movie just goes to show you what clever and talented people can do with very limited budgets. It's about a little girl who has a nasty and disgusting older brother who makes her life miserable--that is until something very extraordinary happens that will make him pay for all his wicked ways!! About the only thing I wasn't thrilled with in this film was the gross breakfast scene--with roaches and a kid eating like a real pig. But, for the audience it was intended for, they probably will LOVE this sort of excessive scene. Overall, I would think practically all kids would love it--all kids except for those who are like the big brother!

It was a typical Saturday morning. Rebecca is easting breakfast with her little sister (as ever done up in high fashion). The arrival of her noisy and aggressive brother at the table ruins the peace of quiet as, on top of having the worst bed-head in the world, he is also a typical pain in Rebecca's life. Later in the day, the bullying and annoyance continues, with Rebecca falling to the ground and knocking herself out cold. She comes to quickly but instantly she finds that the knock has given her powers that she could either use wisely for the benefit of mankind, or to take revenge on her brother. What a choice… A curio piece that I found from early in the career of Robert Rodriguez, using his own family as his cast and his own home as his set. The plot is simple and the idea is that it sets up lots of physical comedy as Rebecca's powers come into play. Unfortunately the limitations of the film prevent it being hilarious because the material is not that inspired; if it weren't for the presence of Rodriguez then it would probably not be worth seeing. As it is, it is interesting to see the way that Rodriguez's hyper style was there from the start. Here it needs refining but it is there none the less.

The main positive factor in the film is from Rebecca herself. She is cute and charming, with great charisma and she does drive the film forward by her personality. David has less of a character and is not as good because of his role within the film. Overall though, it is quite an amusing short film but it is not as strong as many have said and does benefit from the curiosity value of being an early short film demonstrating the distinctive hyper/cartoon style of Rodriguez.