Tag: Samara Weaving

film

Quarantine 2020 Catch-Up: Rapid Fire Reviews #10 Bill and Ted’s Most Excellent Trilogy

Posted on by spacecortez

A few weeks ago a film from my “Most Anticipated films of 2020” (https://spacecortezwrites.com/2020/01/05/my-10-most-anticipated-movies-of-2020/) was actually released on several streaming platforms- so it seemed like the perfect time to gather a few friends and watch it together. Instead of writing solely on Bill and Ted’s latest adventure though, I thought I’d use the opportunity to write about all three films. The first two films, somehow, accurately represent both the 1980’s and 1990’s pop culture aesthetics exquisitely. While the third film injects this most non-heinous year with a much needed dose of positivity and earnest optimism. Your enjoyment of these movies will weigh heavily on whether or not you find these two admittedly mindless fools with hearts of gold endearing or not. If you could put “Back to the Future”, “Wayne’s World” (which, I know, came after the first two movies), and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” into a blender, the Bill and Ted movies would be the logical outcome of that combination. So, watch according to your taste. Oh, and in case it wasn’t clear, I highly recommend each of these films, hope you watch and enjoy! Party on Dudes!

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon and directed by Stephen Herek, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is a supernatural buddy-comedy that perfectly encapsulates the time that it was released in. Rock and Roll obsessed Teenagers Bill S. Preston Esquire (Alex Winter) and Ted Theodore Logan (Keanu Reeves) are doing their normal routine of air guitars and running late for school one day when they lament the fact that their band, THE WYLD STALLYNS, will never be truly excellent… unless maybe they can recruit Eddie Van Halen as their lead guitarist. The two metal-heads are rudely awakened from their dreams of rock and roll superstardom when they’re told that they’re hopelessly doomed to fail their history class unless they prepare an outstanding oral presentation by the following day. Adding to their problems, Ted is handed down an ultimatum from his father that evening- if he fails History, he’ll be enlisted in an Alaskan military school! Which would destroy their band’s chance of becoming totally excellent! Enter, Rufus (George Carlin) a time traveler from seven hundred years in the future where Bill and Ted are revered for their band’s music and philosophy that united nations and helped to forge the utopia that Rufus comes from. With a time machine designed to look like a telephone booth, he shows ‘the great ones’ how to use it, and he lets them loose on ‘the circuits of time’ to learn something so they pass their History class. After accidentally snagging Napoleon Bonaparte (Terry Camilleri) off the battlefield of a war in France 1805, Bill and Ted have an Eureka moment and decide to stop throughout time and bring historical figures to their presentation. So, this one’s a favorite of mine. I’ve always enjoyed the time traveling antics of these two, but upon a rewatch I was pleasantly reminded of all the great side jokes with all of the historical figures that really make the film special. For example, when Bill, Ted, and all of the Historical figures are in the San Dimas Mall, Billy ‘the kid’ (Dan Shor), Socrates (Tony Steedman), and Sigmund Freud (Rod Loomis) are trying to hit on some girls at the mall and Freud’s holding a corndog that he slowly lowers as the scene goes on while he’s failing to be cool in front of the young women before Billy ‘the kid’ and Socrates call Freud a nerd and ditch him. That’s just comedy gold. The whole film is chock full of these jokes, my favorites were Napoleon being ditched at a Chuck E. Cheese style establishment where he fights small children over ice cream, and later when he finds the ‘Waterloo’ water park and becomes obsessed with water slides. Good stuff! The film ends with a fun showy presentation with all of the historical figures prominently showcased and Bill and Ted securing their future- for now!

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

Written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, and directed by Peter Hewitt, “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey” is the totally tubular sequel to Excellent Adventure that creatively flips the script on it’s predecessor and goes it’s own weird way. This film opens in the future where we see Rufus teaching a history class with historical figures like Thomas Edison (Hal Landon Sr.) being brought in for a lecture. Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland), a sort of stock sci-fi villain, storms Rufus’ classroom and sends his android versions of Bill and Ted back through time stealing the telephone booth as Rufus narrowly escapes by following the booth through ‘the circuits of time’. Bill and Ted now live on their own in a small apartment and plan on attending the battle of the bands to win- even though they still can’t play their instruments that well. The princesses (who came from Medieval England in the first film) have learned to play several instruments in that time though. Both Bill and Ted feel bad that their collective lives in ‘the present’ haven’t lived up to the promises that they initially made to the princesses- thus they decide to propose and promise to make everything right. Which is about when the evil robot Bill and Ted arrive and murder the real Bill and Ted and then proceed to ruin their lives and relationships. Wow! What a twist! So then my favorite portion of the movie begins once Bill and Ted escape from Death (William Sadler) by giving him ‘a Melvin’ and trying to tell their parents that they’re dead and that evil robots have replaced them. It doesn’t go so well for them, and when they crash a séance that their stepmom Missy (Amy Stoch) is hosting- they’re whisked away to Hell where they must traverse each one’s own personal hell before they encounter Death again. The exaggerated realities in both Bill and Ted’s personal Hells snugly fit the 90’s aesthetic. Once they find Death, the only escape is by besting the Grim Reaper in a game. Playing off of “The Seventh Seal” (my review here: https://spacecortezwrites.com/2017/10/27/old-school-review-the-seventh-seal/) the film pokes fun at the classic imagery of Death playing Chess with a Knight by having Bill and Ted compete against the force of nature in board games. Battleship, Twister, and even Clue are all played until Death is so thoroughly beaten that he must admit defeat and agrees to bring them back to life- but first they ask to be brought in front of God to ask for help. When Bill and Ted wrack their brains to try and figure out how to combat robot copies of themselves, they decide that they need to find someone to build good robot versions of themselves to fight the bad ones. That someone is Station, a strange alien that is sometimes two smaller aliens, and occasionally one big combined version. “Station” also seems to be an exclamation of sorts in the future, even the evil robot Bill and Ted shout it at one point. It’s all part of the goofball charm that this movie entails. Eventually Death joins the band and they all learn how to play guitars to “win” the San Dimas Battle of the Bands which gains the duo some status as a real band! Truly excellent!

Bill and Ted Face The Music (2020)

Written by Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, and directed by Dean Parisot, “Bill and Ted Face The Music” is the culmination of the trilogy in which Bill and Ted try to finally write and perform the song that will save the universe and unite humanity, fulfilling their destiny. Twenty-nine years later, Bill and Ted still haven’t gotten their song down, and the ounce of fame they got from the San Dimas Battle of the Bands has since waned in power. The Princesses are having doubts about their husbands ability to do the impossible and Bill and Ted are (still) having trouble separating for pretty much any reason. Both have young daughters that are about the age that they were in their first excellent adventure, Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine). Both actresses are entertaining and charming in their roles as Bill and Ted impressions, and I actually mean that. They have some of the best sequences throughout the film in my opinion. So, a lot happens in this one, but the main breakdown is that the film’s structure steals (ironic huh?) from the past two films and mashes them together. Bill and Ted are brought before the council in the future once again, chaperoned by Kelly (Kristen Schaal) Rufus’ daughter. They’re told that they must write and perform the great unifying song soon or else all of reality will break. Realizing that they could never actually write the song in time, the bodacious duo decide to steal Rufus’ old telephone booth (memorialized in the future now) and go to their future selves and steal the song from themselves after they’ve already written it. So they take off to do that, while ‘the great leader’ (Holland Taylor), who is also Kelly’s Mother and Rufus’ old flame, decides that maybe if she has Bill and Ted killed- that may restore balance to the timeline. So, she sends a robot assassin after them. Kelly goes back to 2020 San Dimas to warn Bill and Ted, but instead only find their daughters there, who decide to help their dads by going throughout time and picking up historically relevant musicians. Thea and Billie then go on a time travel adventure recruiting musicians of great skill and fame like Jimi Hendrix (DazMann Still), Louis Armstrong (Jeremiah Craft), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Daniel Dorr), Ling Lun (Sharon Gee), Kid Cudi (played by himself) and Grom (Patty Anne Miller), a Caveman drummer. However, the robot assassin accidentally confronts the daughters once they’ve gathered all of these legendary musicians- and accidentally kills them all. Which sends them all to Hell. Meanwhile, Bill and Ted have been constantly traveling to further and further versions of themselves that keep deteriorating, which at one point the ‘failure versions’ of them try to trick the real Bill and Ted into thinking that they did indeed write the song in time- but it was just a new Dave Grohl song. This was an excellent return to form and I highly appreciated this film, ESPECIALLY this year of all years. I needed this one, and I hope if you catch it, you too enjoy the return of Bill and Ted, THE WYLD STALLYNS!

*Below I’ve linked two videos from Red Letter Media’s Youtube Channel in which they discuss the Bill and Ted movies; Enjoy!

*Also below these two videos, I’ve linked a third YouTube video on Bill and Ted from Wisecrack, titled “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: Is it deep, or dumb?” Enjoy!

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film

Review: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Posted on by spacecortez

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” is a black comedy wrapped in a seething drama set against the backdrop of small town Americana. Seven months after the death of her daughter Angela, Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents out three billboards on the outskirts of town lambasting the local chief of police Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) for the lack of any real progress in solving the brutal murder. The small town life is portrayed effectively here as its filled with an odd cast of characters that all know each other, which also means that they have to live with each other and that comes with its own set of juggling eccentricities and tolerating ideals. This is a foul mouthed film about grief and sadness, when anger can be useful or harmful, and how assumptions about a person can be misguided, incorrect, or just plain insulting.

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Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes is a fantastically multifaceted character. She’s justifiably angered by the police station’s failing efforts in solving the case of her daughter’s horrific murder. She’s justice incarnate when she decides to go on the warpath against certain individuals. Though as the film progresses she’s shown to be vulnerable, at times physically, but emotionally as well. In a couple moments when the anger has quelled and her fists uncurled, she’s even portrayed as a quirky but caring mother. Woody Harrelson’s police chief Bill Willoughby may seem like a caricature at the outset of the film, but Harrelson goes a long way to imbue the small town chief as a man of many layers. He may seem brash and eccentric, but once the film digs a little deeper into who chief Willoughby actually is we find a far humbler and complex individual lying underneath those immediate projections. Peter Dinklage’s character also poignantly reflects the idea that assumptions, at face value, can be wildly misinformed and he checks Mildred on her own biases later in the film which only continues her path towards a softening of her reactive and violent grief.

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While reading reviews and articles on the film after viewing it, I came across the supposed controversy surrounding Sam Rockwell’s character Dixon, a neanderthal of a police officer with a penchant for racial biases and poorly thought out reactions. If you watch this film and believe it to be racist in nature because of this character’s arc, then you haven’t been paying attention. Dixon is repeatedly beaten, mocked by his peers and others, and is never given redemption for his generally awful behavior and actions. In the second half of the film this character is given an acknowledgement from Chief Willoughby that sets him on the path towards becoming a better person, but Dixon isn’t forgiven, he’s simply given a chance to do the right thing, this does not mean that he’s the ‘hero‘ of the story though if that’s what you’re thinking.

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I was particularly impressed with how well the film balanced it’s dark material with comedy through the consistently realistic tone and each character’s reaction to tragedy. This wouldn’t have been possible if the humanity of these characters hadn’t been depicted as efficiently as they were. Just as we each harbor the light and darkness within ourselves, these characters are fallible and just, righteous but selfish, reactionary and meditative all the same. This film showcased a genuine humanity that is seldom seen on the silver screen, and its that much better for it.

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The whole point of the story is that while anger has its place, it can only accomplish so much. Mildred’s cathartic anger from the grief she’s still experiencing after her daughter’s death may have launched the story and gotten the police to reopen the case, but it cannot heal you or cure your grief. Chief Willoughby plants the unexpected seeds of love in the characters that need it most and it is through his actions and acknowledgements that they slowly begin to realize that love and empathy might just be a better outcome than directing our anger at the problems in our lives. The film begins by showing Mildred’s righteous anger as completely justified, and even a bit intoxicating, therefore putting us on her side, but later in the film when Dixon lashes out in anger from his own grief we witness the ugly side of that same dichotomy. This is kind of brilliant because it makes us question what we previously rooted for. After Dixon’s outburst the film puts an emphasis on loosening the grip that anger can clasp so firmly in people’s hearts. Chief Willoughby even acknowledges that the most irredeemable characters can be salvaged if given the right motivation and opportunities through love. This is a powerful message to have in a film at this time. The film isn’t arguing that righteous anger cannot be useful or that it isn’t justified, but that progress cannot be made if you never let go of your anger. Understanding and empathy are the ways forward.

Final Score: Three Billboards, Four Molotov Cocktails 

*The independent article on the “controversy” surrounding Sam Rockwell’s character is linked below and I suggest giving it a read if you’re still unsure of the film. However, there are spoilers within, read at your own caution:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/three-buildings-outside-ebbing-missouri-racism-row-twitter-martin-mcdonagh-oscars-frances-mcdormand-a8178861.html

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