Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - 1989

"Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" - 1989
Dir. by Stephen Herek - 1 hr. 30 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Your mileage might vary wildly on this one, but I think that "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" is one of the best comedies of its era.  Part of that might because the timing was right for me, but I've found this film to be endlessly re-watchable (and laugh-out-loud funny every time).  There's a high probability that something contained within is going to trip up one of your pet peeves, but it would be a good idea to take Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted "Theodore" Logan's advice: be excellent to one another, and party on, dude.

Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are a pair of dim-witted, yet good-natured high school seniors from San Dimas, California who aren't even good at the things that they're supposed to be good at.  They're fully committed to turning Wyld Stallyns into a legendary band, but their practices are derailed by a debate over whether they need to make an awesome video first, which will then lure Eddie Van Halen into teaching them how to play guitar, or if they need to get Eddie Van Halen to teach them to play guitar, which will then result in a triumphant video. Bill and Ted are also, barring a miracle, about to flunk out of school, which means that Ted will be sent to a military academy, and Wyld Stallyns will come to an end.  In what has to be on the shortest list of greatest highdeas of all-time, Rufus (George Carlin) is sent back from the future with a time-travelling phone booth, which Bill and Ted are to use to collect historical figures, who will be used to deliver a history report that will save their educations (as well as the world, since Wyld Stallyns music is supposed to be a catalyst for achieving world peace).

Bill and Ted aren't the first pair of perma-stoned dimwits to show up in cinema (and they never actually address or use drugs of any kind), but they perfectly embody falling into success.  They go with the flow, and  both Reeves and Winter had to spend time in their careers living down these characters; an indication that they both really nailed the parts.  The characters kind of know what to do, do it not particularly well, and still end up bumbling into a better spot by the time things have wrapped up.  The fact that they're both so inept and so free of malice makes it a lot easier to root for them along the way.

But just because the main characters (and the setting itself, San Dimas) are kind of dopey and unaware of their surroundings, that doesn't mean that this is a dumb movie.  A constant refrain of elders is complaining about where kids get their information from.  But instead of viewing that as a bad thing, this film assumes that there really are people who think that Julius Caesar is the "salad dressing dude," and drops some legit historical figures in a decidedly not-reverent setting.  Each of the historical figures stays true at least to what you might think of them: Napolean is a dick, Socrates is eager to learn, Abraham Lincoln won't tell a lie, even when nobody believes him.  And if you dropped all of these people in a mall, why wouldn't Joan of Arc end up commandeering an aerobics class?  Why wouldn't Genghis Khan find a sporting good store, and arm himself a little better?  All of this might not add up to a doctorate thesis, but someone knew enough to pick entertaining characters, throw them together, and keep them straight.

One more thing about the... uh... demeanor of Bill and Ted.  This film was made at a particular time and place, when Nancy Reagan was shouting "just say no" from the hilltops.  So, while Spicoli from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" had no problem being very clear about his medicinal preferences a few years prior, Bill and Ted borrow the behavior and avoid addressing the issues.  You can see the same sort of phenomenon from the "Wayne's World" movies, too.  Fast-forward a few years, and you get more transparency on this issue as well.  In this instance though, I don't mind it.  There's one simple reason: "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" is a very tight, tightly-paced film.  If you have seen films like the "Harold and Kumar" series, the drug scenes can derail things.  They're used almost like a love scene would be used in a drama film, and there's no time for that in "Bill & Ted."  Also, often times, when portraying somewhat aimless characters, there's a tendency to let the plot drift as well, which absolutely doesn't happen here.  Bill and Ted have a goal, they have steps to take to achieve that goal, do so, someone's funny in every scene, and then the film is over.  Even the love story is another function of the main idea behind the film, that of the time-travelling phone booth.

For me, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" is a superficially dopey, clever, tight comedy.  It doesn't aim for darkness (like "Heathers," a much darker then-contemporary high-school comedy), but jabs are thrown (like with the jock who didn't put much of a report together, finishes with "San Dimas High School football rules," and gets a standing ovation for it).  So many of the plot twists are absurd, so a viewer either has to accept that or move on to another film.  But there's a self-awareness to the absurdity, a kind of wink to the audience that they're all in on the joke together.  It adds up to a brisk, funny film that I've watched probably dozens of times (I wore out two admittedly cheaply-produced VHS tapes of this film), and which never gets old.

4.5 / 5 - DVD

Point Break - 1991

"Point Break" - 1991
Dir. by Kathryn Bigelow - 2 hrs.

Theatrical Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

I guess Rob Cohen and Vin Diesel really liked this movie.  Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why "xXx" uses elements of this film and especially "The Fast and the Furious" use the exact same plot.  I'm not saying that "Point Break" is the first film to explore the idea of someone going undercover, but the similarities are striking.  But this film might be more recently familiar because of it's mention in the excellent "Hot Fuzz."  So what I'm saying is that people have seen "Point Break."

"Point Break" is an early starring role for Keanu Reeves, who plays Johnny Utah, a former college football star whose career was derailed by injuries.  He is now an FBI agent, paired with Pappas (Gary Busey), working bank robberies.  There is one crew, called the Ex-Presidents, that have been very successful in this endeavor.  Pappas' pet theory is that the unusually disciplined bank robbers are surfers, who use the loot to spend the rest of the year chasing waves.  As to whether or not that theory holds up, I'll refer you to the film's poster for a clue:

Utah has to go undercover (since he's twenty-five, and Busey is in his fifties, possibly in dog years), and a chance encounter with a woman named Tyler (Lori Petty) provides him an in.  At this point, there have been a few films that use this plot, so I don't think that I'm spoiling anything when I saw that Johnny falls for Tyler, gets too close to Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who is leading the crew he's after, and that he jumps out of a plane without a parachute and survives.  Wait, what?

Yeah, he really does that.  There are a number of pretty spectacular action sequences and natural vistas (since the surfers are adrenaline junkies, they surf and sky-dive almost constantly, which provides ample opportunity to wallow in natural beauty).  There are car chases, bank robberies, house parties, beach football games...  The one thing that the characters have in common is that they're kind of restless, and incapable of sitting still.  And all of that works pretty well for the basis of an action film.

For a lot of the film, the real story is Johnny Utah's search for his own identity.  He's a young man, fresh out of Quantico (which in itself was a back-up plan when his athletic career went up in smoke), and it makes sense that he'd be susceptible to the charms of Tyler, Bodhi, and the ocean.  And as long as the Ex-Presidents stay disciplined, it's all kind of harmless fun.  No one gets hurt, the banks are insured, and the surfers get to live out their Endless Summer.  But when the pressure starts bearing down on Bodhi, he cracks, and things aren't harmless anymore.  It is at this point when the real tension begins to mount for Johnny Utah; he understands the lifestyle and the appeal of it, but when things turn deadly, the Ex-Presidents cannot be allowed to continue on.

A lot of jokes are made about Keanu Reeves' acting chops, but at this point in his career, the role of Johnny Utah was a nice transitional role between his "Bill & Ted's" character and an attempt to do more dramatic work.  All of the quirks of his style are perfectly suited to a movie about surfing (despite him not knowing how to surf before this film was made), and aren't a distraction at all.  Gary Busey is a good supporting actor, and Patrick Swayze knocked his role out of the park.  It's not hard at all to see why other people would want to be around him and follow his lead, which is a prerequisite for this kind of character.  And when his dark side starts to emerge, it's plausible.  I even liked Lori Petty (and yes, I loved "Tank Girl"); she's not a conventional lead actress, but she's easy to warm up to.

Is "Point Break" a good movie?  Well, it's pretty good.  There are things to recommend it (the action, the surfing scenes, a reasonably good plot), and things that work against it (how you feel about Reeves and Lori Petty as actors, the languid pacing at points in the first half of the film), but it's pretty watchable.  I've seen it a few times now, and I'm still not sick of it.  That's probably the best thing that I could say about it.  And plus, Busey's character drifts a 80's sedan around a turn at one point during the big car chase.  What's not to love about that?

3 / 5 - Blu-Ray

Constantine - 2005

"Constantine" - 2005
Dir. by Francis Lawrence - 2 hrs. 1 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Probably the most important things to know about this movie is that it's "based" on the long-running DC/Vertigo comic book series, "Hellblazer," and that it features a character co-created by Alan Moore (as well as artists Steve Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch).  What does that mean for you?  A legion of people who were prepared to hate this movie from the get-go (and I'll get to the reasons in a minute) got to it before others did, and spread their hatred far and wide.  Ordinarily, it wouldn't even be worth discussing, but this is a pretty decent film once you divorce it from it's source material (and one of it's creators).

First off, Alan Moore.  Whether or not he's right (and that's strictly a matter of opinion), he does have a habit of complaining loudly and publicly disavowing any movie that's made based on one of his creations.  Or another way to put it is that someone from the media shows up on his doorstep every time a movie is made based on one of Moore's creations, knowing that he'll say something inflammatory and spectacular.  However you look at it, it's like clockwork.  He has no problems publicly sabotaging movies based on his work, and does so out of a general moral objection to adapting creative works to different medium.  Secondly, what you see on-screen bears little resemblance to the comics work, other than the general idea and the general adaptation of one of the better Hellblazer graphic novels, titled "Dangerous Habits."  Whereas the character was initially supposed to resemble Sting (from The Police, not the wrestler) in a trenchcoat and was a cynical Brit, the filmmakers decided to cast Keanu Reeves in the main role.  So you can understand why fans of the character might not have been inclined to view this movie in a charitable manner going in.

I don't consider the changes to be necessary ones, but they were made, and there is no imaginary perfectly-strict adaptation to compare this Keanu Reeves version to.  That leaves a potential viewer a couple of reasonable options.  One is to say that the changes are absurd, and to stay far away.  The other is that you have to accept what is here, and take it at face value.  What is not reasonable is to watch it so that you can complain about it.  Yes, "Hellblazer" would have been an excellent title, but try to get a film with "hell" in the title into multiplexes.  Not impossible, but a needless battle to fight during the Bush administration.  Yes, it probably would have made more sense to cast a fair-skinned British actor in the lead, but they didn't.  It's set in Los Angeles and not London, no matter how much pouting and crying anyone does over that fact.  The question is, can you just shut up and enjoy what's here?  If not, the exit is to your left.

The story is kind of a tortured religious logic one: there are extra books to the Bible that us common folk don't know about, and they explain how the son of Satan (not the Marvel Comics character) will try to come to Earth.  Until then, demons and angles live among us incognito, playing their roles in a cosmic bet between God and the Devil to see who can collect more souls.  The demons are becoming more brazen, which concerns John Constantine (Keanu Reeves), but his lung cancer also concerns him.  The other main character, Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz), a detective, discovers that her recently-committed twin sister has committed suicide, which she finds unlikely considering the large religious consequences for her soul.  John and Angela end up working together to try to unravel what happened to Angela's sister and for the recent aggressiveness of the demons.

Does this measure up to the best "Hellblazer" comics?  Probably not.  The structure of the movie is Franchise Establishment 101; Constantine has a young apprentice, Chas Kramer (Shia LeBeouf) to spin-off in the future, there's a Magical Negro (TM Spike Lee) in Papa Midnite (Djimon Hounsou) with a shady past (there's your prequel), and there's an implied future romance between Constantine and Dodson.  And they don't even kill the big bad guy (that would be Satan himself, played with creepy awesomeness by Peter Stormare).  Hell, they've even got the music crossover locked down with Gavin Rossdale's character.  The entire design of the story is textbook.

But the execution is pretty fun, and that goes a long way.  The settings look fantastic; even Hell is a creepy swirl of warm colors and nasty creatures.  Keanu does the Keanu thing, there's some perverse pleasure in watching a British actress try to pull off an American accent, and the bit players rock.  Swinton and Stormare in particular are a ball to watch (not at all unusual).  If you're open to it, there's fun to be had here. If you're in the mood to nit-pick, there's certainly fuel for that fire as well, but for a spooky/action movie, "Constantine" isn't bad at all.  It's not a good adaptation of the source material, but taken on its own, it's a solid movie that could have been the foundation for an on-going franchise if things had played out a little differently.

3 / 5 - Blu-Ray

Johnny Mnemonic - 1995

"Johnny Mnemonic" - 1995
Dir. by Robert Longo - 1 hr. 43 min.

Official Trailer

by Clayton Hollifield

Based on a William Gibson short story, this movie has a couple of my favorite things.  First, it has Keanu Reeves.  Despite what you may think of his acting skill, he's racked up a good resume of interesting films over the course of his career, and he's got to get at least a little credit for that.  Secondly, this is a mid-90's computer film.  It's as if most people knew that we were all largely headed online, but things weren't developed enough to give any clear indication as to what this future would look like.

An easy visual comparison movie is "Hackers," although this story is set in the near future of 2021.  But whereas Hackers pitted dirty computer punks against the outdated system and old fogeys, "Johnny Mnemonic" delves more into the class warfare aspect that access to advanced technology inevitably creates.  But I have to stop myself, I'm probably making this seem a lot more interesting and deep than the final product is.

The basic plot is thus:  Johnny is an information courier, augmented with "wetware" upgrades.  Keanu has an 80 GB brain!  These couriers are used to transfer sensitive information in the black market, like super-secure data sticks.  Johnny needs to pull off one more dangerous transfer in order to get out of the game, but things go south almost immediately.  The job entails putting way too much data into Johnny's head, and if he doesn't get it out of there, it'll seep into his brain and kill him.  The whole thing is a set-up, and Johnny and his bodyguard Jane (Dina Meyer, of "Starship Troopers" fame) have to hook up with a band of low-tech rebels lead by Ice-T (sporting nearly the exact same look as in "Tank Girl").  In the end, stuff blows up, and a freaking DOLPHIN ends up extracting the info from Keanu's head.  Henry Rollins also has a fun role as a really angry doctor named Spider, and there's also an obligatory goggled virtual reality sequence.

Visually, there are interesting aspects to this film.  The aforementioned early look at what people thought cyberspace might look like 25 years in the future is kind of cool.  I think the 90's cyberspace look is probably going to occupy the same territory as 80's dystopian sci-fi films do.   On the downside, this film also picks up on two of the worst trends from the 90's: a complete lack of sexiness to anything (I'll thank the AIDS crisis for that, but Dina Meyer appears to be wearing a burlap sack as a coat for much of the film.  I've seen "Starship Troopers, so I know how hot she was in this time period.  Why cover that up?), and a weird glossiness to what's supposed to be grimy, seedy areas.  People are afraid of dark alleys because they're wet, filthy, weathered, and a little rape-y, but the common approach to those scenarios was to just make everything shiny and light the hell out of it with neon.

This was not a great film, but there are a few interesting elements to it.  I giggle a little bit that an iPod now is smarter than Keanu's character in another 10 years.  But if you're a big fan of Keanu Reeves, Henry Rollins, or you like 90's computer movies, it's not terrible.

2 / 5 - NF Streaming