And now: The most exhaustive breakdown of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen ouevre you'll ever need

By William Hughes | May 25, 2019 | 12:04am

Aux Features Film

And now: The most exhaustive breakdown of the Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen ouevre you'll ever need

Photo: Ron Galella, Ltd.

Although they eventually fled from it with a fervor normally associated only with the messiest of divorces (or crime scenes), there was a decade-or-so-period there—i.e., from 1992 until they turned 18, freeing themselves from the hell into which they had been pretty much literally born into—where Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen were more-or-less inescapable. In addition to their vast and prolific television work, the duo produced 36 films and TV movies together, ranging from theatrical releases like 2004's New York Minute, to a wide variety of direct-to-video offerings like The Adventures Of Mary-Kate & Ashley, in which they solved mysteries that were not, in point of fact, actually all that mysterious. (“Can a shark sing? Probably not!”)

As an ouevre, the Olsen canon has, tragically, gone largely unconsidered by critics. But no more: Vulture has run a piece today (penned by Rachel Handler), which we can almost goddamn assure you will be everything you could ever possibly need to know about the Olsen twins’ filmography. Handler goes in deep on just how weird so many of these movies are, filled as they are with dead moms, abundant kidnappings, and frequent refrains in which the kids sing songs intended to express the concept “Jesus Christ, we’re so very, very tired.” In other words, it’s both exhaustive and the fun sort of depressing, which, now that we think about it, is a pretty apt summary of child-stardom anyway.