Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985)

Director: Tim Burton

Cast: Paul Reubens, Elizabeth Daily, Mark Holton, Diane Salinger

Have I Seen it Before: Many, Many Times.

Did I Like It: There’s a reason Pee-Wee and Tim Burton have hung around in our natural consciousness. It is this movie.

It’s so rare that a movie can be so steeped in old sensibilities (Bob Hope road pictures, Bond movies, Godzilla, Beach Party pictures, and Chaplin’s Little Tramp can all be found in the DNA) and blaze such a trail for movie comedies yet to come. From Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) to Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990, and another favorite), to even <this movie>, Big Adventure’s influence is all around us.

The first few minutes of the movie are so chockfull of imagination (and low budget animation to boot!) that upon first viewing, one couldn’t help but be forgiven for assuming that the movie won’t let up from there. 

Yes, Batman (1989) is what cemented Burton’s reputation as the occasional maker of undisputed box office charm, but both this and Ed Wood (1994) (his two films that I think age the best) tell us that his first and main love were the sensibilities of weird B-pictures. I wished he would keep making films like this, instead of the watered down gothic fantasies that he must think Hollywood demands of him. The fact that Danny Elfman doesn’t write more scores like this is kind of depressing as well.

Pee-Wee’s relationship with his bike is such a purely Spielbergian idea, but refracted through the lenses of Burton and Reubens, are able to go in far more wry directions. I remember being a boy and looking at my bike like that, even if it couldn’t do all of the things that Pee-Wee’s rig could. If I sold the rights to my life story, I’d probably want James Brolin circa 1985 to play me, too. The movie celebrates the obsessive, the spazzy, and the myopic elements within us all, and never loses sight of the fun in the journey.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t want to hear your excuses. But what? Everyone I know has a big “but…” C’mon, Simone. Let’s talk about your big “but.”

Sneakers (1992)

Director: Phil Alden Robinson

Cast: Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell

Have I Seen It Before: No (sort of)

Did I Like It? Not really.

The movie comes from a very high pedigree. The cast sells itself. Honestly, if Redford is in a movie, isn't there a certain benefit of the doubt written into the picture? Phil Alden Robinson had just come off Field of Dreams (1989), the one movie featuring Kevin Costner that everybody seems to like. It's only now that we no longer have James Horner around that every time one of his scores echo forth, does it seem like discovering a lost treasure. Walter F. Parkes and Lawrence Lasker had already brought their skills to similar subject matter in WarGames (1982).

And that's where things don't quite work out. Where WarGames had a sense of fun to it, even when flirting with the end of Western Civilization and the fundamental futility therein. This movie plays dour and aloof. I'm not even an automatic naysayer of dour and aloof, but this one failed to bring me in. I'm even vaguely certain that I had tried to watch this movie at some point in the past, but neglected to get through the process. Had I not happened to be tempted to start these writings with this viewing, I may not have made it through here. The cast is fine, but not great. It is only a desire not to speak ill of the dead that keeps me from wondering what the big deal was about some people in the 80s and 90s. I'll leave you to contemplate that. Even that much feels pretty catty.

Also, and this may be just a nitpick, but I just don't understand how a movie post-1985 can get away with shooting so obviously in the Universal backlot. I know that's the Hill Valley Clock Tower. Everyone knows it is the Hill Valley Clock Tower. You're not fooling anyone.