Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020) — B+
The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (Norman Jewison, 1966) – B+
Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993) — A+
Cooley High (Michael Schultz, 1975) – B+
Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino, 1987) – B+
Swing Shift [director’s cut] (Jonathan Demme, 1984) – A-
Not Another Teen Movie (Joel Gallen, 2001) — B
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, 1975) — A
Puberty Blues (Bruce Beresford, 1981) — B
Minor spoilers for Bill & Ted Face the Music:
Bill and Ted — from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, and the newly released Bill & Ted Face the Music — could’ve been Gen Z icons. Strip away the arena rock aesthetics and the late-’80s slacker-speak and you’re left with something that’s strengthened with each generation that’s come of age since the original movies — from the disillusionment of Gen X to the snarky caring of Millennials to the earnestness and sincerity of Gen Z. These are things that Bill and Ted have in spades; if Clueless’ Cher is the queen of cinematic optimism, Bill and Ted are her princes. Created by writer Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson and brought to life by Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, Bill and Ted are in part defined by their good-hearted wholesomeness, something that is sorely lacking in much of cinema. Oftentimes, filmmakers think giving a character a flaw means making them unlikeable in some way — after all, they have to change and be redeemed by the end, don’t they? The Bill & Ted creators skirt that issue. Bill and Ted don’t necessarily change as much as they learn. Which is built into their central hardware — they’re two guys who are completely ready and willing to listen and learn.
Bill & Ted Face the Music is no different in that respect. The bros are much older with wives and daughters (named after each other), but they’re just as patient and generous. They’re doofy, but not in that sitcom dad way where they are hardheaded and a little bit selfish. At the movie’s beginning and throughout, they are genuine in their professions of love and dedication to their families. They want to save the world and be good husbands and dads, and they try their absolute damndest to never let the former get in the way of the latter.
Not only are Bill and Ted the characters generous, but their portrayers are as well. Reeves and Winter have no problem sharing the screen and dispersing the laughs — in particular with the excellently cast Brigette Lundy-Paine and Samara Weaving as Billie and Thea, respectively, but also with the scene-stealing Anthony Carrigan (Barry’s NoHo Hank) and Kristen Schaal in the George Carlin role. It’s no surprise, given that the good guy reputations of both actors have only grown in the 31 years since they first appeared on screen together.
The plot of the movie is goofy as all get-out, and the aesthetics certainly would’ve been better served with less of an update to the 2020 perceived future and just stuck with the old version of the future, but it’s all kind of ancillary to the return of well-intentioned excellence. Everything else is mostly muddled, at times intentionally, thanks to the creators hand wave take on time travel — something that typically suits the franchise fairly well — and you can see the climax coming from a mile away, but the entire thing hits its catharsis right on the mark, making the contrivances it takes to get their worth it. It reminds me of these videos where thousands of musicians play a song all at the same time. Every time I see them I roll my eyes at the earnestness of the idea, but then I watch them and they are always genuinely beautiful. I’m really happy they didn’t shy away from playing the music — movies and television are always worse off when they hype up some piece of art and then don’t bother showing it because it could never live up to the hype they’ve given it. Face the Music goes for it. The premise of the movie asks, “How can a song save the world?” and in all it’s relentlessly optimism, the movie’s execution answers: “If we all sing along.”
- The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming is fun to watch because the comedic tone is one we don’t see too often in today’s comedies. It’s grounded even when it dips into hi-jinx, and it’s laugh-out loud funny without being laden with jokes. Jokes often come from the situation rather than feeling stuffed with punchlines that would fit in any other movie. Basically, a Russian sub accidentally runs aground in a small island off the coast of Cape Cod and sends its residents into a panic. The movie is secretly as tender and sweet as it is funny, which is very.
- Groundhog Day is a perfect movie and even the parts of it that aren’t perfect are now.
- I’m a sucker for coming-of-age movies. Cooley High — set in a mid-’60s Chicago high school with an excellent soundtrack — nails it. There’s some meandering, some comedy, some stakes. It’s notable how much more well-rounded the characters are and how seriously the film takes their lives than the outbreak of John Hughes-led ’80s teen dramedies.
- I think I always thought that Dirty Dancing was like the ’80s cinematic version of something like 50 Shades in that it’s for middle age wine-drunk women who want to feel a little sexy. And honestly, it’s not not that. But that’s ok, because there’s nothing wrong with being that, but also because it’s also a pretty good movie. Jennifer Grey carries a watermelon, there’s a legendary soundtrack, and it’s all made worthwhile when they hit that fucking lift at the end.
- I watched the director’s cut of Swing Shift this week even though I’ve never seen the cinematic cut. It’s been widely acknowledged that Demme’s version is a superior version, even if it’s a lot harder to find nowadays. So I can’t speak to it in comparison to what originally came out, but I can say that this version of this movie is a heartbreaking look at the ways in which World War II affected those left at home. It’s as humanist and empathetic as Demme’s best work.
- Not Another Teen Movie is so dumb, but because I watched it on TV so much as a young teenager, I can’t really divorce my feelings for it. I do think it’s genuinely funny at times, even if it misses the mark other times — which is where the film’s sketch comedy structure helps it. It also helps that, as previously mentioned, I’m a sucker for the kind of movies it’s parodying. I think it’s also notable for really going for the outrageous, parodic, and at-times meta-textual tone that Mel Brooks and Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers brought to popularity and exceeded at in the ’70s and ’80s with spoofs like Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles, Kentucky Fried Movie, Airplane!, Police Squad!, Spaceballs, The Naked Gun, and Hot Shots! The only real attempts at that type of thing have been the Scary Movie franchise, the filmography of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (whose eight directorial efforts have a combined 16 percentage points on Rotten Tomatoes), and Not Another Teen Movie.
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail is similarly a series of sketches strung together. Sketch writing will typically find multiple ways to tell the same joke, changing it and heightening it but sticking with the same general joke — something that shouldn’t really work in a feature length film. But the Monty Python troupe essentially write enough sketches that fit so perfectly well into their setting and are so well-written and funny that the film hangs together anyway.
- Puberty Blues is an Australian teen sex comedy told beautifully from the perspective of two teenage girls as they navigate puberty, sexuality, and the social hierarchy of the beach. For 1981, the movie is remarkably progressive in its approach to sex and masculinity and really gives certain subjects the weight that they deserve.
*I moved last week and so had less time to watch movies and less internet than usual, so I’ve smashed two weeks together.