Worth Mentioning - Party On, Dudes

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

Bill and Ted, debauchery, Kevin Smith, and karaoke.

BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY (1991)

After Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure was released and became not just a hit but also something of a pop culture sensation, it was pretty much a given that there was going to be a sequel. Studio executives wanted something that would basically be more of the same: while the first movie had titular dudes Bill and Ted using a time machine phone booth to gather notable figures from the past so they could pass a history test, the sequel execs had in mind would have been about Bill and Ted using a machine that could transport them into books so they could gather literary characters that would help them pass an English test. But Bill and Ted creators Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon wanted to do something much weirder than that. Matheson and Solomon pitched an idea they called Bill & Ted Go to Hell - certainly not something anyone who saw Excellent Adventure would have expected for a follow-up. Actors Alex Winter (who plays Bill) and Keanu Reeves (Ted) were given the chance to choose between the two ideas. They picked Bill & Ted Go to Hell, which would end up being called Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey by the time it reached theatres in 1991.

Since I had watched Excellent Adventure when it reached VHS and become a fan of it, I was at the theatre to see Bogus Journey when it came along... but this is an odd case in which the comic book adaptation has a stronger presence in my mind than the actual film does. I had a copy of the Marvel Comics adaptation of Bogus Journey and flipped through its pages so much, when I watch the movie I have flashbacks to panels of art from the comic.

The feature directorial debut of Peter Hewitt, the sequel reveals that not everyone in the 27th century is happy with the utopian society that has been built on the foundation of Bill and Ted's music and positive message ("Be excellent to each other" and "Party on, dudes"). A terrorist group headed up by Chuck De Nomolos (Joss Ackland) steals the time traveling phone booth from Bill and Ted ally Rufus (George Carlin) so they can send robot doppelgangers of Bill and Ted from 2691 back to the 1990s, at a crucial turning point in the lives of Bill and Ted. Five years after the events of Excellent Adventure, Bill and Ted are still in a band called Wyld Stallyns with their girlfriends Joanna and Elizabeth (now played by Sarah Trigger and Annette Azcuy), princesses they met in medieval England. Wyld Stallyns hasn't had any success yet, which has Bill and Ted feeling very bummed, as they don't know what De Nomolos knows: the Battle of the Bands they're set to play at isn't just a shot at a $25,000 first prize and two year record deal. This show is where Bill and Ted's message is first going to reach millions of people, through a speech they'll be giving there. That's why De Nomolos has programmed the robots to kill Bill and Ted, take over their lives, and deliver a different speech at the Battle of the Bands.

 

The robots are at least partially successful. 25 minutes into the film, our heroes have been killed, tossed off a cliff by the robots (who send them off while repeating a word that shouldn't have been in the first movie and was brought back for this one, but at least this time it's villains saying it). But that doesn't stop them from trying to save the future. While Bogus Journey does have some time travel in it, most of the story centers on Bill and Ted traversing the afterlife, trying to find a way to warn people that robots have taken over their lives, and hoping to be able to rejoin the living. Ted possesses his own dad (Hal Landon Jr.), the guys crash a séance being hosted by Ted's stepmom Missy (Amy Stock-Poynton) - who used to be Bill's stepmom, and before that was the older girl Ted asked to the prom - and, in a sequence that is very popular and fondly remembered, challenge Death himself, the Grim Reaper (William Sadler) to a series of games. If they win, they'll live again.

As the original title promised, Bill and Ted to make a trip through Hell, where they face their greatest fears - like the Colonel who runs the military school Ted's dad always threatened to send him to - and are dropped into troubling childhood memories featuring Bill's granny and a monstrous Easter Bunny. As a Full Moon fan, I had to take note of the fact that young Bill was played by William Throne from Demonic Toys, while the voice of the Easter Bunny was provided by Frank Welker, who did the same voice for Baby Oopsy Daisy in Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. Bill and Ted don't spend much time in Hell, though, so Bill & Ted Go to Hell wasn't a great title for this. Plus, they also go to Heaven, where they seek the help of the greatest scientific mind they can find, an unforgettable character (or is that characters?) called Station. Welker also voiced Station, and gave it/them the same laugh he gave the troll in the Stephen King anthology Cat's Eye.

That "Bill and Ted meet literary characters" story could have been told by anybody, but Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is a wild, weird ride that could have only sprung from the minds of Matheson and Solomon. Nobody else would have thought of putting Bill and Ted through this, and the sequel benefits from being so uniquely strange. This is one of the few times when I enjoy a sequel even more than I enjoy the first movie - I find that Bogus Journey is even more interesting and entertaining than its predecessor. And all this insanity of robots, possession, time travel, a crazed granny, the Easter Bunny, Martian science, Grim Reaper games, Heaven, and Hell builds up to an ending that gives me goosebumps.

This movie would be awesome even if it didn't have Pam Grier in it, but it does! Grier has a small role as Ms. Wardroe, who decides which bands will play in the Battle of the Bands.

THE BINGE (2020)

Directed by Jeremy Garelick and written by Jordan VanDina, The Binge is a comedy that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the horror thriller franchise The Purge. Whereas The Purge is about an annual twelve hour period during which all crime is legalized in the United States, The Binge is set in a not-too-distant future (2036) in which the United States is once again under prohibition, with a zero tolerance policy for all drugs and alcohol... except during an annual twelve hour period during which all drugs and alcohol are legalized. Anyone over the age of 18 is allowed to participate in this event, which is known as The Binge.

As the latest Binge gets underway, the film centers on a group of students from American High School, primarily the trio of Griffin (Skyler Gisondo), Hags (Dexter Darden), and Andrew (Eduardo Franco). Hags is the one who's most enthusiastic about participating in Binge Night, it's his determination to reach a certain party so he can take part in a drug-and-alcohol-consuming competition called the Gauntlet that drives the story forward, while Andrew is happy to be included and the neurotic Griffin worries about everything every step of the way, trying to figure out how to interact with his crush Lena (Grace Van Dien), but being incredibly awkward every time they have a chance to talk. I had seen Gisondo and Franco in other things before and enjoyed their performances, and they're a lot of fun to watch here. This was my first time seeing Darden in anything and he also proves to be a strong comedic actor. Garelick cast this trio perfectly, and VanDina put them through some amusing troubles on their quest to Binge. Getting to the party should be easy, but Griffin, Hags, and Andrew have to bumble through a world that seems to be working against them.

Meanwhile, Lena's dad, who also happens to be the Principal at American High, is trying to find out where that same party is so he can retrieve his daughter from it. Principal Carlsen is played by Vince Vaughn, and he is hilarious here. Another standout is Zainne Saleh as Sarah, who the guys cross paths with a couple times during the night. Saleh gives Sarah a way of speaking that would be very annoying under regular circumstances, and it's a way of speaking that many young women have, but she goes so over-the-top with it that it's funny and memorable. Especially when she delivers the line, "Fix that cow-uh!"

The Binge is a really entertaining, amusing, and ridiculous comedy of debauchery.

CELEBRITY SHOW-OFF: SON-IN-LOCKDOWN (2020)

The pandemic lockdown left many of us sitting at home with nothing to do, and TBS decided to take advantage of the fact that celebrities had unexpected spare time by greenlight a competition show called Celebrity Show-Off, in which celebrities filmed their own short digital shows at home, and their shorts would then be put up against each other to see who would get to shoot a show the next week and who would be eliminated from the pack. One celebrity who got to compete in all nine weeks of the show was Kevin Smith, as his show Son-in-Lockdown earned him a second place finish.

I spent the pandemic stranded in Brazil, so I didn't watch Celebrity Show-Off as it aired; I didn't have access to TBS. Thankfully, the shows the celebrities created were shared on YouTube, so I was still able to watch the one thing that would have given me reason to watch Celebrity Show-Off: Kevin Smith's Son-in-Lockdown.

Son-in-Lockdown is a goofy play on the classic sitcom style. Smith shot it in his home with his wife Jennifer Schwalbach, his in-laws, and his daughter Harley Quinn Smith as his co-stars, his "hetero life mate" Jason Mewes also making a couple appearances - and Austin Zajur playing the title character. Zajur is dating Harley Quinn Smith in real life and spent the pandemic lockdown living in the Smith home, so the set-up for the show is exactly the same as the real situation - the Son-in-Lockdown difference being that the show's version of Zajur is an insufferable thorn in Kevin Smith's side, making his time in lockdown completely miserable.

Most of Smith's work would not be suitable for TBS, but while Son-in-Lockdown still delivers the sex and weed jokes you'd expect of the filmmaker, it does so in a TV friendly way. It's a nice little show with a silly sense of humor, and does feel like an old school sitcom. It even plays with sitcom tropes, especially in the episode where Smith and Zajur get stuck in an elevator together and have flashbacks to previous episodes. Smith previously satirized sitcom flashback episodes / clip shows with an episode of Clerks: The Cartoon back in the day.

Smith also found a way to pack a lot of self promotion into the episodes, building one around the recently released Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl video game and another around cameos from his many podcast co-hosts.

Each episode of Son-in-Lockdown was only around five minutes long, so you can get through all nine of them in well under an hour. It's a fun show to sit through, and I really enjoyed watching Smith and Zajur bounce off of each other. I was left wishing that Son-in-Lockdown was an actual half-hour sitcom rather than just a short show aired in the middle of a competition series. 

DUETS (2000)

Duets is sort of an odd film, an ensemble drama with karaoke at its core. Directed by Bruce Paltrow from a script written by John Byrum, it follows three separate pairs of people who are on the road together, building up to a climax where their paths cross at a major karaoke competition that really doesn't matter by the time the end credits roll. It's an entertaining movie to watch, though, and features some enjoyable musical performances when the characters take karaoke stages throughout.

It can be kind of tough to care about most of the characters. Huey Lewis plays Ricky Dean, a guy who makes his money hustling people at karaoke bars. By the time Ricky meets his daughter Liv, she's already an adult played by Gwyneth Paltrow. Liv is desperate to get to know her father, and shares his interest in karaoke - an interesting situation, but not a gripping one because Liv is a rather dimwitted person. 

Another pair are Billy Hannan (Scott Speedman), an Ohio cab driver who has just found out his girlfriend was cheating on him with the guy he owns the one-car cab company with, and the unscrupulous Suzi Loomis (Maria Bello), who talks Billy into stealing the cab and driving her to California. Suzi is not a very pleasant person, no matter how many thrills she offers to give the men around her, but Billy sticks with her because he feels it's his calling in life to help people.

The best pair of the bunch consists of Todd Woods (Paul Giamatti) and Reggie Kane (Andre Braugher). This is the pair I like watching more than the others, and the only pair I actually care about and feel for. Todd is having a major midlife crisis; he has spent his adult life flying from place to place for business meetings and yet can't manage to cash in his frequent flyer miles for anything, and during the brief periods when he's home his family ignores him. So he ditched family and responsibility and has hit the road, going wild and making his way across the country one karaoke bar at a time. Todd finds Reggie hitchhiking and gives him a ride, not knowing that he's fresh out of prison and working his way back there by robbing people on the road. Reggie doesn't rob Todd, though. They become friends, Todd teaches Reggie how to drive, and as time goes on Reggie starts to take on some of the responsibility that Todd has thrown out the window. He wants to save this guy from his self-destructive behavior.

And yes, by wonderful coincidence, this hitchhiker Todd picks up happens to have a hell of a singing voice. You might notice that Andre Braugher isn't as good with the lip syncing as his co-stars, and that's because he's the only cast member who didn't do his own singing. Arnold McCuller provided Reggie's singing voice.

Duets is kind of odd. You might wonder why and how it got made, it might not have even gotten made today, at least not on this budget level, but it's worth a watch, especially if you'd like to hear Lewis, Paltrow, Bello, Giamatti, and Braugher (actually McCuller) sing some good songs.