Smash this Pumpkin by MATTHEW HAYS Don’t get me wrong, Christina Ricci rules. I loved her in The Opposite of Sex. In Buffalo 66. In The Addams Family movies even. But Pumpkin, which begins with some promise and then settles into a big bad old stretch of mediocrity, goes on far, far too long and is beneath her. I can see what the filmmakers were trying to do: skewer the constraints and clichés of the teen-romance, lovers-from-the-opposite-sides-of-the-tracks movie. And what Pumpkin has, sadly, is about half of what it needs to get by. The final half of the film drags on unbelievably. This despite Ricci, unbelievably bleach-blonde doing a sort of Alicia Silverstone-Reese Witherspoon composite role (in Clueless and Legally Blonde, respectively), as a dippy gal who just wants to get ahead with her buddies from an uppity sorority. Too bad they’re all hopelessly superficial, something Ricci will only learn after several trials and tribulations. It’s a pity, because Pumpkin has some good ideas—and certainly a noble intent. But the teen social-issue movies it’s attempting to puncture are very easy targets, and once we get the point, we’ve got it (as the film continues to go on and on). Still, every actor has a misstep. And this was Ricci’s. (We could also easily chalk it up as a misstep for the equally sublime actress Brenda Blethyn, who’s so great in films like Secrets & Lies and Little Voice, but who here is also sorely wasted.) The film premiered as part of Comedia this past week and opens Friday, July 19. See film listings for showtimes. Comedia continues to screen this week, including Versus, the utterly bizarre splatter comedy from Japan, Nine Dead Gay Guys, the repulsive and controversial mortal-queer yuk-fest and the Eat My Twisted Shorts short-film anthology. A few of these shorts are pretty funny, including Montrealer David Uloth’s Shine, a TV ad-horror movie hybrid that’s as silly as it is inspired. Look fast for local writer (and occasional Mirror contributor) Alexis Diamond, who plays a corpse. And don’t miss Lloyd Kaufman and his Troma team, who will be present on Friday and Saturday screenings of their excellent gonzo doc All the Love You Cannes. Finally, I was supplied a good laugh at the Y on Parc last week, while on my bi-annual visit to the gym. I spotted Dimitri Estdelacropolis there, the filmmaker behind the legendary local production Shirley Pimple. As many in the film community will recall, the film took Estdelacropolis decades to complete, in large part because of his own on-again, off-again heroin habit. Both of us were equally surprised to see the other involved in physical exercise. Estdelacropolis broke his silence: “You know, if word gets around that you saw me here, it’ll ruin my reputation as a degenerate junkie.” : COMMENTS: mhays@mtl-mirror.com