'Shorts' director Rodriguez does families, felons

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robert Rodriguez is back in a family way.

Opening Friday, his kid-friendly comedy "Shorts" is the latest in a seesaw career in which Rodriguez veers from family fare such as the "Spy Kids" flicks to violent thrillers such as "Sin City" and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico."

A collection of "Little Rascals"-inspired adventures with a loosely linked plot, the PG-rated "Shorts" has some mildly crude humor, including a giant monster created out of a stray booger a boy picks from his nose.

But it's a complete turnabout from Rodriguez's previous flick, 2007's "Planet Terror," his violent, gory zombie fest that featured an amputee with a machine gun for a leg.

As he switches back and forth from family films to bloody adult action, one genre reinvigorates the other for him, Rodriguez, 41, said in an interview.

"By splitting it up, it's that palate-cleansing, where you can almost feel like if your head was too close to a project, I just needed to turn to the other one and edit that just for a day," Rodriguez said. "When I came back to the original movie, it's like I'd been away for months, because you've just done a complete mind-switch.

"So it gave you a fresher perspective and much more distance."

Rodriguez recalled shooting "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over" while he was editing "Once Upon a Time in Mexico," with both movies hitting theaters within a couple of months.

Likewise, he was editing "Sin City" while shooting the family tale "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D," the two overlapping to the point where he had the prostitutes of the former and the child heroes of the latter in front of the cameras the same day.

"There were literally some days where we'd be like, OK, we still have to shoot some pickup shots from 'Sin City,' so we'd shoot the kids for half the day, send them away, and in come the 'Sin City' girls in their robes," Rodriguez said.

A do-it-yourselfer since boyhood, when he began making short films starring his siblings around their Texas home, Rodriguez did his usual multitasking on "Shorts," writing, directing, producing, editing, writing the music and serving as his own cinematographer.

Four of Rodriguez's five children appear in "Shorts," including 10-year-old son Rebel, who came up with the movie's basic idea when he suggested his father do something along the lines of "The Little Rascals" short comedies.