Endless Summer and The Girl on the Broomstick

I love subculture documentaries, and "The Endless Summer" is one of the original greats. Who wouldn't want to follow 1960s surfers around the globe looking for the perfect wave and staying ahead of the season so it's summer all year? There's no natural sound, just a funny, wry narration from the filmmaker, Bruce Brown, and cool surf music of the era. Beautiful, intimate shots that understand what is interesting about what they're doing. It's a lot of fun and a time capsule, too. 

"The Girl on the Broomstick" is a silly, rewatchable Czech movie from 1972 about a witch who gets mixed up in absurd ways to get out of a 300-year school detention. It's funny and wild in ways an American movie would never dare, while being OK for kids who don't mind some random violence, rabbits in peril and, of course, can read subtitles or speak Czech. It would have made a great Hayao Miyazaki movie. It's funny but not surprising that the very next movie the director, Vaclav Vorlicek, made became a weird cult holiday film tradition in Europe ("Three Wishes for Cinderella"). I've watched some of that too and it's really odd because of some dubbing choices made - the movie itself is fine, but doesn't have the zaniness of Saxana, the girl on the broomstick.

The Girl on the Broomstick is fun, although her terrible wig does drive me to distraction!