Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the All Eighties Movies Podcast, the
podcast where we talk about the block, clusterer, stuff.
Speaker 2: Locks, everythink in between. One of the precious decade for movies,
nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Bill Band. Along with me on this
journey of read this in eighties movies is my co
host Jason Massek. Hello, Jason, Hey, hey, hey, hey, Now,
don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because remember,
no matter where you go, there you are.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Listeners, we are discussing with spoilers of plenty, the nineteen
eighty four cult classic The Adventures of Bukaro Bonzai Across
the Eighth Dimension. It was produced by Sherwood Productions and
distributed by Twentieth Century Fox. The movie stars Peter Weller,
John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldbloom, and Christopher Lloyd. Directed
by W. D. Richter, This movie is raty PG with
the running time of one hour and forty three minutes.
So what is this movie about? What's in the box?
If you grew up in the nineteen eighties and what's
your local video store? To rent this movie? You would
find this description on the back of the VHS box.
It is what's in the box, Take it away, Jason.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately after its release, The Adventures of Buckeroo Bonzi
earned the status of an instant cult classic. It's not surprising.
Buckeroo Bonzai is a dynamic marriage of camped up sci
fi and edge of the seat suspense. It's a larger
than life hero in an unforgettable quest, colorful, crazy, and
fabulously entertaining. Buckeroo Bonzai is a top neurosurgeon, race car driver, rockstar,
and comic book hero and probably the last hope of
the human race. His latest experiments have opened the door
to the Eighth Dimension and have unwittingly begun an inner
stellar battle for the world. On one side are the
Red Lectroids, whose leader inhabits the body of Doctor Lizardo.
On the other, the Black Lectroids and our hero Buckaroo,
backed by his rock and roll commandos, the Hong Kong
Cavaliers and his sweetheart Penny Pretty best of luck Team Banzai.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai.
Speaker 1: The Adventures of Bukaroo Banzai across the Eighth Dimension. That's right,
So that was what's in the box that Jason I
just gave us and Jason Newrom the first time you
saw this movie.
Speaker 2: I just saw it for this podcast for the very
first time, and man, I can't wait to talk about it.
I do have to give a shout out to Rob Huckstadt.
He was one of my great friends in high school
and he always said this was his favorite movie, and
I never knew why because I never watched it and
I'm a bad friend, So sorry, Rob. But now I've
watched it and I still don't know why it was
his favorite. I might, actually I might, but I'm just
making a joke here, miss you. Rob. He used to
call me Iceman and he was archangel. But anyway, what
when When did you see this first bill Band?
Speaker 1: I believe it was March of nineteen ninety one because
it was part of my twenty five movies in five
days my first spring break in college. I had no money.
My parents decided to fly me back home from the
University of Miami, so I had nothing to do. I
had no plans, so I went over to Budget Video
and just started reddit movies I had missed from the eighties,
movies like The Adventures a Buck, Rubh's I Across the
Eighth to Mension, Black Moon Rising, the Wraith movies like that,
and for five days, that's what I pretty much did
and catched up on old La Law episodes.
Speaker 2: That was my week. Heck, yeah, I can't wait to
cover The Wraith Man. That's one of my oh yeah favorites.
That's a crazy movie. That would definitely be a good
one two punch this one for sure. Yeah right right,
But I always love you when you talk about that,
the twenty five movies. It's just that's a lot, man,
that's a marathon for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wish I could do that again someday. But we
don't have video stores anymore. So that really made me
miss video stores because I think because of that, I
probably never would have seen a movie like this. I
didn't know anybody that had seen it before, and I
don't even remember someone at school talking about it. But
it was just because of the cast. I was like,
all right, I got to check this out and everybody
in this movie. I have to watch it. And if
I tried to find this on streaming, forget it. I
mean streaming has its place, there's some good things about it.
But I do miss going to a video store because
if I made that trip to go out there. I
wasn't coming back empty hand it. I was finding something right,
and sometimes you find gems like this The Adventures of
Buck Group onsidea yea, indeed. All right, So let's talk
about the movie and what are impressions of buckru Bonzai. So, Jason,
I'm going to ask you first before we get into it.
How many times did you watch the movie for the podcast?
Speaker 2: Okay? So I watched it all the way through once,
But technically, if you count the number of times I
had to rewind scenes and play them again to figure
out what the hell was going on, I probably watched
it three times. I'm exaggerating. I've probably watched that. I
was going to ask two times.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how long did it take you to somewhat
understand the story?
Speaker 2: And so what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because even I had to keep going back In a way,
this movie was stressing me out because I'm like, oh
my god, we got to talk about this on the podcast,
and I'm not even sure I'll tell the audience what
this movie is about. Outside of buckru Bonzai is a neurosurgeon,
rock and roll physicist.
Speaker 2: And don't forget martial artist.
Speaker 1: Yes, I had no idea what was going on and
how to explain it. So if you have never seen
this movie before, don't worry if you're confused, because you
will be is very confusing. How did this get produced?
Because if you had given me this script, if you
wrote this Jason, and you gave it to me, how
many questions would I have had for you?
Speaker 2: No less than a thousand?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we would have had at least a three hour
conversation going through this me asking you to explain everything, like, right,
why is he need to be a rock star with
these blue Blazers? How do you become a Blue Blazer?
There's so much in this movie it almost makes it
feel like I missed part one or part two correct,
And I just feel like, oh.
Speaker 2: Wait, was this based on a book? Was there something
else that I'm missing? Exactly exactly?
Speaker 1: Just assume what's going on? But it's not. This is
an original screenplay that was somehow put on screen. I'm
not saying that in a bad way, But there's no
way this movie would get made now. There's no way
we get through the studio system. It would have to
be someone would have to finance it themselves. That's the
only way it would get made. Right, It literally bankrupt
a studio, and I'm not surprised. So I was really
curious to see if you kind of knew what the
plot was, could you even explain it under five minutes.
Speaker 2: Because it's so I could. Yeah, I think I could,
only because Bill Bant. I sat here in my apartment
and rehearsed it probably six or seven times, because not
on purpose, like I wasn't rehearsing it as if I
was going to do this on the podcast. However, I
just may now. I was saying it out loud to
explain it all to myself, so I had some comprehension
of what I was watching and what was happening, And
then of course I read the plot through on Wikipedia
to confirm that. I mean, it is the major complaint
I have for the film, and I enjoyed this. I
enjoyed this, But my big complaint is that the plot
is way too convoluted and it's just too much. What
I wrote down first and foremost was that it feels
like a bunch of ten year old boys got together
and said, hey, let's make a movie, and they just said,
we're going to put every single one of our cool
ideas in it. Yes, and that's what it feels. It
feels like a young boy's wish fulfillment film. And here's
another issue I had. We'll get back. Sorry, I don't
want to get two sidetracked because we got so much
to talk about, because I want to do want to
talk about the plot. However, I went into this film
not knowing anything about it. I hadn't read anything about it.
I literally had no clue what the tone of this
film was, what the genre was, So I had no
idea it was going to be an action sci fi comedy,
so that this film is actually parodying many other sci
fi films that came before it. So I caught on
somewhat quickly. I'm like, oh, this is meant to be
super campy and things like that. But then and then
I started really having fun with it. But getting back
to the plot, now, that's where I just started getting
I got lost and I felt like I was missing things.
And I think if you do the research, you would
read that there were things that were taken out of
this film. There's different versions of this movie, and that
kind of turned it into a plot mess. Yeah, So
I mean I can give it a shot and try
to explain it in sixty seconds actually or less. All right,
go for it, all right? Well, of course it's stars
are Bukaroo Bonzi, who is a man of many talents,
a neurosurgeon, a test pilot, molish martial artist, and a
rock star did I say rockstar already? But he's joined
by his band of fellow super stars and just all
around badass. Is called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. But the
point is Bukaroo Bonzai and his all his genius and
his partner, Professor Hikita. Professor Kikita and Bukaroo have developed
this technology called the oscillation overthruster, and it is this
little piece of its gadgetry that allows you to penetrate
a solid object and enter that object and thus enter
what is called the eighth dimension. And we see this
in the opening of the film. They go inside of
a mountain through using the jet car which is powered
by this oscillation overthruster. Now, this technology, when used, has
alerted an alien race called the Electroids, and they are
from outer space. But we also learn that these Lectroids
have been trapped within the eighth dimension for a reason
because on planet ten, somewhere out in the galaxy, these
Lectroids had some sort of civil war of you if
you will, and the Black Electroids imprisoned the Red Electroids
in this eighth dimension, which happens to be on Earth
within the Mountain. I guess. However, now because of this
technology being developed, it may fall into the wrong hands,
which would be John Lithgow's character, who happens to be
wants or happens to want to free the Red Electroids
from this eighth dimension. And if John Lithgow's character, Lord
John Wharfin gets a hold of Buckeroo's oscillation Overthruster, then
he will be able to release the evil Red Electroids
from the eighth dimension, and then they will fly back
to Planet ten and exact the revenge on the Black Electroids.
And so that's the gist of it. There's even more
to it if you can believe it, but I'm going
to leave it at that right now, right a little
over a minute to explain it, just yeah, you can
have to. That was just that's the whole podcast right there.
You're gonna have to edit that down, good luck, man.
Speaker 1: Sorry, but I did like that they tied in orson
well and the uh War of the worlds.
Speaker 2: That was a cool aspect for sure.
Speaker 1: Saying that the famous radio drama that people thought was
real then it came out to be a hoax might
actually real because that's when the Red Lectoids did come
to Earth and then brainwashed orson Wells into saying that
it was a hoax.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. That was fun. I did enjoy that little
nugget that they put in there. Yeah, man, I mean,
this movie is a wild and weird trip. I've used
the expression fever dream before and it kind of feels
like that type of movie. This is one of the
ultimate you just have to go with it type of
movie I mentioned. It feels like it was just made
by a bunch of ten year old boys. You know.
We just got to get into the cast, I think,
and start talking about some of these characters and these actors,
especially characters like John big Booty. I mean, boute b
that is a character in this film played by none
other than Christopher Lloyd. What. And we're going to get
into the cast right now. And my biggest question, I
think I went over my biggest complaint. My biggest question
is how did they get all of these actors to
be in this movie. I saw some of the casting
in the research behind, you know, the scenes research, but
it still doesn't explain like this is an incredible cast.
Speaker 1: Well, you think about it. It's nineteen eighty four and
I thought about this too, And this is part of
the reason why I do like this movie. It's just
because of everyone that is in it. A scene does
not go by where you're like, holy crap, that's blah
blah blah, and I was like, Okay, So Peter Weller
who plays Buckaroo buckerou Bounds, we didn't really know him
until RoboCop, so this is pre RoboCop for him. Plancy Brown,
no one knew who he was at the time. Really
the big names of Jeff Goldbloom because big Chill, but
he wasn't a name name yet he does exactly what
we know him for. The quirky side character wasn't carrying
movies like The Fly at that time, Ellen Barkin Diner.
That was about it, true, John Lithcow. I think the
only other movie he might have done up to that
point was The World According to Garb before or after Footloose,
So he's still pretty early in his acting career. Yeah,
so yeah, I got to give the casting director a
lot of credit to and the producers for pulling in
all this talent. Did you realize the president was Ronald
Lacy from raisl lost Ark? Oh?
Speaker 2: Okay. I recognized the name when I went over the cast,
but no, I didn't even think about that. Wow.
Speaker 1: I had no idea until I had to read the cast.
I did not recognize him at all, And at first
I thought, oh, maybe it's a mistake, but yes, why
can't I think of his character from Maise lost Ark,
the one who grabs the medallion and has it burned
on his hand. Doesn't look anything like him? Oh my god,
not at all. No. I literally just watched that scene
again just to see what kind of resembled. I'm like,
it's really hard, like you can tell it's him. But wow,
if I didn't see in the credits, I've been like, oh,
maybe it is, Maybe it isn't.
Speaker 2: Now I have to I just got to go back
and look at it. That's crazy, right, I just didn't.
I never ever would have put that to Kaila.
Speaker 1: And then another interesting thing was there's only like three
actresses in this movie. Everyone else is male. H Outside
the bar scene, do you see women in there, but
I was like, holy moly, this is very male dominated movie.
I don't know why that seemed to surprise me so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's a great point. Again, ten year old
boys made this movie clearly, and we made a great
point about the casting as well. Absolutely, they were not
who we know them to be today, So at that time,
it's not like they were asking for millions of dollars
to be in this movie or anything like that. So
I love the names of these characters, all of the
I mean all these characters. We've got Buckero Bonzi, We've
got the Hong Kong Cavaliers, what a great name. And
we've got Reno Perfect, Tommy Rawhide, Penny Pretty New Jersey
is Goldbloom's character. I love that all these guys, of course,
are just like best buds in a rock and roll
band that happen to be badasses running around saving the world.
They're basically dudes in cool threads running around with guns.
I don't know how they got the authority to do
what they do, but they have it. And obviously Buckaroo
has a direct line to the President as well. It's amazing,
like who are these guys? But it's super super fun.
And not only do we have the Hong Kong Cavaliers
attached to Buckaroo, but we have these Blue Blaze Irregulars
that are basically like a Bucker Bonzai volunteer force that
can be called upon at any time. And then we
see a father son duo actually join the mission throughout
this movie that are they're they're like citizens. There were civilians,
but they are part of the Blue Blaze Irregulars. I
thought that was real cool. But like, if you're listening
right now, you can see how overloaded this film is already.
I mean, it's just there's so many different aspects, but
they're just a lot of great fun sci fi aspects
to I mean, I mentioned the electroids. They are are aliens,
which are the good guys and bad guys in this movie.
We've got red electroids, black electroids. They're all named John
for some reason, because that's the name they decided to
take when they came to Earth. But anyway, I just
wanted to cover the names a little bit. They're just
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of interesting nuggets in it. And
I know you're one that like, oh they read this again,
this would have to be a television show, ah, right,
like a six part series to try to get all
this information into what they're trying to c him into
an hour and forty three minutes. Yeah, it's too much,
it really is. It's too much, major complaint of mine.
But Peter Weller looks fantastic. He's an absolute stud in this.
Speaker 2: I was just last night watching the robodoc about the
making of RoboCop, which is absolutely amazing, and he briefly
mentions backer Ubonzai being a wonderful experience. Jeff Goldbloom is
Jeff Goldblum, always simple, nothing complicated about his character except
he looks super goofy. He literally is dressed as a
cowboy that's.
Speaker 1: Never explained, like why are you in that cock? It's
like a comical adaptation of what a cowboy should look like.
And there's only one reference like where's your spurs? And
then that's it and he just swears it for the
rest of the movie.
Speaker 2: You're like, why, Yeah, it's how you would dress up
as a cowboy for like a children's fair, Yes, you know,
for like the pony rides and stuff, like, I mean,
it's completely like this, And then we get Lewis Smith
playing Perfect Tommy, who's a super handsome dude. Like, why
do I know this guy? He looks he has real
like James Franco vibes. He just has that square jaw
on that kind of pretty boy face. And he really
didn't do.
Speaker 1: Much outside of this from one other thing, yeah, the
Heaven Ken, which I saw the drive inn. It was
on the bill. It wasn't the first movie. I think
it was like the second or third movie we saw
that was a heaven Kid. That was the first and
only time I've seen it.
Speaker 2: There you go, Clancy Brown. I love this guy, man,
I love him. I actually liked his character raw Hide
a lot in this and well, I won't say it now,
maybe you have it in a favorite scene. Well I'll
wait for it later. But always a pleasure, always pleasure
to see Clancy Brown. Can we talk about Ellen Barkin
though for a second? Go ahead. First of all, super talented,
wonderful actress. I have to ask, though, is there any
female actress that exudes more sexuality and sensuality? I know
we talked about this in Sea of Love, but I mean,
she is on fire and I was thinking maybe Gina
Gershan was another one for me today could be Scarlet Johansson.
But more importantly, the reason why I want to talk
about her for a second is, holy shit, she's really
strange in this. I don't know what her character is.
I know who she's supposed to be in the movie,
and I know she's supposed to be part of the
relationship aspect of this, bringing some romance into the film,
being bucer Ubonzai's romantic interest. But it's just weird. Did
you think she's really emoting a lot her sexuality in this?
And I did? It felt like she was in a
different movie sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't really like her character in this. Yeah,
I don't even know why she was in it, correct,
But again, I'm watching her on screen. I'm like, I
would not have a poster of Ellen Barkin on my wall.
But if I was somewhere and she walked into the room,
all eyes turn. I find her incredibly sexy, But I
don't think she's attractive, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I'll disagree with you on that, but
I but I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: But there is a shot of her when Buckaroo sees
her in the prison and she walks over and she
gives us look and I'm like, wow, yeah, that I
was like super hot. Like her, her skin is flawless
and it doesn't look like there's any makeup, and I'm like, wow,
she has great skin. She has great legs too. I
would never consider her pretty per se, she's just sexy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's just it's it's just who she is.
And but the character, the character is wildly bizarre. She's
acting a little bit like a lunatic. In the first
we understand that she has some emotional issues from the
start because she's attempting suicide in the club scene. But
then after Buckeroo gets her out of prison, then she
is immediately actually attracted to him and really really wants
to to be with him, And then we understand that
she is sort of just lost in the world. She
doesn't know who she's supposed to be, and she might
be his wife's twin, the wife that he lost. I
don't know. Do we know how he even lost his wife? Nope,
we never find that out. And his wife's name was Peggy,
but her name is Penny, so it might be a twin.
And we find she's adopted. Like it's just all these
character things are thrown in there, but nothing is really resolved.
It's it's and she's just kind of being weird as wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because when he first sees her at the club,
you would think he would have more of a reaction
because he would recognize her thinking it was his wife
and freaking out about and he just seems so calm
about it. And then the rest of the group's kind
of like, holy shit, this girl looks exactly like Peggy
m He doesn't really seem phased about it until she
keeps it act him like, why is there a picture
of me in your house? It's like, oh, that was
my wife.
Speaker 2: She's dead. That's over. Like what, Yeah? They just keep
adding layers. How about we move right into then another
wild performance in this movie, The Indelible John Lithgow, Oh
my god. He plays the character Emilio Lozardo doctor Emilio
Lizardo slash John Wharfin, and right from the get I
was like, what is he doing? What is happening? He's amazing,
He's amazing. He is really fun to watch. All of
his physical movements, the way he turns his head and smiles.
He's got these really messed up teeth and he's got
this weird greenish face and you really you learn why,
but still it's he must have had an absolute field
day playing this role, because he's playing it so over
the top, so exaggerated in every facial express moment, and
he has a very heavy Italian accent on top of it,
as he's this crazed Italian doctor of some kind. I
don't know, what do you think about John Lithgow in this.
Speaker 1: Oh, he was so much fun. I think, Yeah, you'd
be so excited to just have that kind of roles,
just like, just do whatever you want, just do whatever
you want and just have fun with it. And he's
a blast. He is so freaking bizarre. Yea, every scene
you can't take your eyes off of him. He's just
so It's like, how did you come up with this?
I did see a couple of the interviews that they
had with some of the actors looking back on it,
and all of them said the same thing. They had
a blast making this movie. They had no idea what
the movie was about, but they just had a blast
doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that. I love that he has some
wonderful lines, and I actually think his character has some
really good writing. Some fun writing because he basically screws
up every like classic expression or thing. You could say,
something like he'll say home is where you hang your
hat instead of home is where the heart is kind
of thing. And there's several times he does it in
the movie, and it's pretty funny if you pick up
on it. One line, though, I have to say, and
just beware, I understand there's a racial overtone to this,
but I couldn't believe he said it. But then I
understood why because his character is talking about the electroids
in this, but he literally is at the final action
sequence when he's at the Yo Yo Dyne Propulsion Industry's
headquarters where all the red lectroids have been residing and living.
It's like their nest. He is trying to get them
riled up and gives this just this big speech, and
he says, blacks are on this planet here in New Jersey,
coming to destroy us. And of course he's talking about
the black lectroids, like holy crap, man, but wow.
Speaker 1: And then he keeps calling humans monkey boys, which makes
sense because you know, he supposedly evolved from primates. So
I'm like, that's hilarious, monkey boy.
Speaker 2: He's deranged in this and you do find out why,
and I'm going to talk about it in a little
bit here, but love him in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So this movie did bomb. Now do
you think if this movie was made now, which I
don't think it would be made, do you think with
all the superhero stuff and all that, do you think
this movie would be have a better chance making it
now than it did back then?
Speaker 2: I think so because of streaming, for sure. I think
it would be critically acclaimed and it would get enough
media attention that people would know what they're getting into
when they were watching it. I think that's just the
nature of the business today that you'd find out so
much about The trailers would give out probably a lot
more information. I don't think it would be a huge
hit at the box office, I do not, but I
think it would be critically acclaimed and so it would
get a lot more eyes on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did watch the trailer. Trailer gives you nothing.
But if they made this, maybe even a decade later,
with that same cast, at that point, you know who
everybody is. Yeah, I think that definitely gets it more
butts for sure. But in that case, how do you
promote this movie. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: It's a campy sci fi parody, is what it is.
I mean, And I like that aspect of it because
it doesn't take itself seriously. It's very fun. There's aspects
of this that in moments felt like it was a
Zucker Brothers movie. When the President pulls out the declaration
of war the short form, yes, now we got these
little gags in here, just like a Zucker Brothers movie.
And I was like, Wow, that's funny. Why does now
this feel like a naked gun or something like that?
So that's great, that's really fun. They definitely wanted this
to be a bigger thing. They were really going for
the multimedia aspect within the movie itself. Unfortunately, it just
didn't work out that way. Like you said, it bankrupted
this But you know, I'm going to save my other
complaints for later for that segment. But it just took
me a minute to understand that this was a total campfest.
Speaker 1: And I think this is part of the draw off
for the movie is because you do really have to
watch multiple times. You just have to watch it twice
just understand the plot, and then once you figure that out,
that's when you start catching the lines or the site
gags and all that other stuff. Every time you watch it,
you're going to catch something different. Yeah, and I lied.
Speaker 2: Actually, I'm going to step on my complaints a little
bit here and say that the issue I had too
is just that I felt like some of these actors
and characters are in different movies. And then also Peter
Weller himself kind of plays it sincerely, like there are
there's some sincere aspects to this movie that feel like
it was actually going to be a true sci fi
action adventure film. But then it just takes these random
left turns and some weird things happen, and so it
becomes a little bit of a bumpy road for me.
The tone kind of goes up and down.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I'd like to I felt like he kind
of played it straight throughout. Yeah, and just all this
weirdness is happening, and to him it just seems like
an everyday occurrence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe that's probably the way he should have played it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, all right, do you want to move on
to favorite scenes or moments or he has anything else?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it. No, let's go, let's get down
with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, favorite scenes or moments and I believe you and
I have the same for the first one, which is
the deck car test. Heck, yeah, so this had to
be interesting to you because you had no idea what
the hell is going on?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And I even thought about this too. If you're watching
this movie for the first time, they're like, okay, rocket car,
all right, makes sense. And then next thing you know,
Buckeroo drives it off road and then drives it through
a mountain and all this weirdness happens and you're like,
what the fuck was that? Then you still have everyone
in the lab watching this, and they all seem to
know that this was supposed to happen, or at least
most of them did.
Speaker 2: H It's so bizarre.
Speaker 1: It takes it right into it like this movie is
gonna be different from anything that you've seen, And now
you're scrambling going, what the hell is going on? Yeah,
whyser slim all over his car like Ghostbusters, what the
hell is grab on to the underneath of his car,
this little pod thing? What the hell hit his car
while he was We don't know what's the eighth dimensioned
at that point, but it's just really weird.
Speaker 2: It is a hell of an intro. It is one
hell of an intro. I like the way it was shot.
I like the way it was paced. It is again
just like, yeah, give me a rock and roll Like
I guess it's a Ford three point fifty I read
with all this stuff loaded on top of it, with
a giant jet engine on the back, and it's just
cruising through the wide open desert. It looks fantastic. I
love Peter Weller's entrance, bucker Ubond's entrance. You do not
see Peter Weller's face for the first eleven and a
half minutes of this movie. You see him doing his
neurosurgeon thing, but he's behind the mask and he's talking
to gold Bloom's character and recruiting him for the Hong
Kong Cavaliers. Meanwhile, everybody's waiting for him because he's supposed
to be the test pilot for this jet car, and
they got this great music and build up and they're like, well,
we got to go without him, And then all of
a sudden, of course, he appears right on the scene
magically and gets in the car and you have all
the mission control speak in the background. They're like, just cool, gadgetry, cool,
gadget tree. It's fun, but you're right when he goes
off track and then all of a sudden, the oscillation
overthruster kicks in and you see the kind of laser
beam shootout which softens the rock of the mountain and
allows him to enter into the solid form and into
the space within the mountain. You're like, what, literally, that's it? What?
But man, it's like, Okay, where are we going to
go from here? Yeah? Now it's just trying to catch
up what's going on. Oh, there's one fun thing with
this I wanted to mention during I read this in
the trivia during the jet car test, the computer screen
has those graphics that show three different words like it's
a progression cuts back to this screen and in the
car it says signed, and then it says sealed, and
then delivered is the third one. Again, weird subtle thing
they put in there for this campy comedy. It's weird.
And then what do you have next for a favorite scene?
I've got doctor Emilio Lozardo's flashback again. What you recognize
John Lithgow right away, but he's got this weird makeup
on on these really dirty, messed up teeth and the
kind of spike weird hair going on, and it's just
how he actually it's not even it's not even like
a they do this flashback in this weird way. I'm
at a loss for words. It's just so confusing because
he attaches like these electrodes, like with sponges or whatever,
onto his tongue and other things onto his head, and
it takes you back in time, like you're going back
in time in his mind, as if he is shocking
himself back into his memory to nineteen thirty eight where
he was part of a failed test of his own
oscillation overthrust that was missing a part and thus entered
the eighth dimension but only halfway and got basically beat
up by some red lectroids and possessed by the leader
of the Red lectroids, and that's why he's insane. It's
like a fun sequence just to watch Lithgow being a
mad scientist and rushing through the test, even though Hikeda
is there, the young professor, young version of Hikda is
with him, and it's just that cool contraption where it's
he's strapped to that car that goes along the tracks
and you know, he's supposed to go inside the wall,
but he actually is thrown off and goes only half way,
and it's kind of scary. Actually, it's really creepy and weird.
It's a fun scene and the GW is just going
for it. He's just going for it. So I had
fun with that. I enjoyed watching that a couple of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't talk about this movie without trying to
do a favorite scene with John Liscow And yeah, yeah,
the flashback one is pretty funny because yeah, he goes
in he's not even normal to begin as a professor,
and then he goes into the eighth or halfway goes
through the eighth in mass and somehow comes out even weirder.
Speaker 2: Yep. And also I liked the when because he's like
in this what is it the Trenton Home for the
Clinically Insane or something like that, and we get to
see Jonathan Banks in this as the nurse, the male
nurse like taking care of him, and it was great
to see him. And there's that great line that he
calls it like you would kind of refer to he
says Jonathan Banks as he's walking off, laugh of while
you can monkey boy, so a lot of fun in then.
Speaker 1: So scene moment for me that it just made me
laugh out loud is when Buckero gets the message from
the leader of the Black Lectroids and I think that's
John M. Dall and in order to watch the message,
they're basically have bubble rap over their faces with lenses
put in, and they're basically telling Buckeroo, you have to
stop John Wharfin John Lithgow's character, or else we're gonna
blow up your planet because we can't let the red
leactoids leave the planet.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And in the middle of watching this, another conversation is
going on about Ellen Barkin's character Penny. Now they can't
find her. Just in the middle, I don't know because
it's so deadpan, it made me laugh out loud, where
buck Crew says, well, everyone please shut up so I
can hear the rest of this thing. It's not a
funny line, but in the circumstance and just because this
movie is so bizarre and he's wearing bubble rap on
his face, I lost it.
Speaker 2: I think I wrote down that they look like jelly
red light masks with goggles attached. Yeah, if you know,
have you seen those red light masks, the red light
therapy masks. Yeah, people were, but this is like the
like that jelly version, and it looks so weird. It's
so rudimentary. And again it looks like kids found stuff
in their backyard and put it together and they're like, okay,
that you put on this mask and now you can
see a hologram. Pretend, pretend like that's the power of this,
that this mask, you know what I mean. Like, it's
just feels like kids playing with toys and that's the way.
And it just looks so cheesy this scene. It's funny
you brought up the interruptions too, because I'm trying to
follow along with the plot this John m Dallas saying,
laying it all out for you, and it keeps cutting
away to missus. Johnson is now entering and asking and
talking about Penny, and I'm like, what, I can't hear.
I can't hear what she's saying. And then Peter Weller
literally says, can you all shut up? So I'm like, yes, please,
But you actually miss lines because they're cutting away and
other people are talking, and I'm like, this is already confusing.
Why why are you shooting like that? I love they
brought it up for everybody. That was awesome too. Yep,
good old Uh who was it? John? The other the
good the black electroid? Uh? Electoid or electroid? I say
electroid because I think of electrodes or electroids, because right,
that's okay, I've heard you say electoid. That's why that's okay.
I'm not uh for a second, maybe I had it wrong. Okay, Yeah,
that's a John Parker, Yes, who also that is a Rastafarian. Yes,
that's what my questions like, Why are all the black
electroids actually Jamaicans? What a choice? Yep?
Speaker 1: All right, So of course I had to pick a
John Lycal scene for my favorites, and it is when
they kidnap Penny and they're about to torture her and
he calls Bukaroo to try to get the isolator or yeah,
what is it?
Speaker 2: The oscillation overthrust.
Speaker 1: Her, overthrust her and he starts off the call normal
and then just as the scene goes on, he just chewing,
chewing and chewing and chewing, chewing, and then there's a
moment where he takes the phone and gives it to
Penny and Penny starts screaming.
Speaker 2: Don't come get me, Buckaroo.
Speaker 1: And of course, weller again just super dry, Penny, get
out the phone. Yeah it's great. She is super scared. Yeah,
and he's just like, get out the phone.
Speaker 2: Now. This is making me think if I had watched
this with you or a group, like a group of
guys probably like our buddies, our phone, like, we probably
have a lot lot more fun watching this.
Speaker 1: I agree that one hundred percent, because it's so bizarre,
we'll just all be picking.
Speaker 2: Out different things. Yeah. Yeah, but yes.
Speaker 1: Another just scene chewing display by johnath Cowan that oh yeah, yeah,
he's fantastic and it's not even one of his biggest ones,
but I just like that one.
Speaker 2: No, but there's just a whole every little moment is great.
Buck rub being super dry again. Yeah, it's a good call.
That is funny. It's a funny line. All right. So
I think I'm am I up next? Or do you
have one more? Okay, so I'm going straight to the end.
I just have fun with the final action sequence, but
especially when the red Electroid ship, the mothership if you will,
has taken off and has failed to go into the
eighth dimension. So they're basically I guess just trying to
fly away and into space, but they're still in our
atmosphere and flying through the sky. And somehow it's some
good action here, some cool set design within the ship,
the electroid ship, some weird it's just all of it.
There's a lot of detail actually, and fun moment when
we've got Christoph Lloyd as John Big Booty or Bouta.
He keeps getting mad throughout saying boot Te, it's boote,
it's boute And then finally John Wharfin Lithgow, he turns
around shoots him. That's fun and the reason why this
is actually I've chosen as my final favorite scene is
that of course Bukeru Bonzi and John Parker have boarded
the ship and they managed to basically well, they're actually
jettisoned by Lithgow, so now they're in a smaller ship
and they end up using the laser gun to shoot
the main ship and kill John Wharfin finally and those
red lectroids aboard that ship. My favorite moment though, is
now John Parker is going to use this jettison pod
to fly off, and at some point Bukeru Banzai had
ejected from the pond and He's now in a parachute
descending and he's waving, waving to John park He's waving
to the spaceship as it's taking off, and it's the
cheesiest looking shot, and that made me laugh, if not
out loud, I was definitely laughing on the inside. But
he's dropping in the parachute. Literally, it looks like he's
thirty thousand feet in the air too. By the way,
there's no he could breathe, and he's just dropping in
the parachute through the clouds, waving to the spaceship that
is taking off. It's it's insane, but it's fun. That
made me laugh too. I could he's basically in the
studio being hung six inches off the ground and it's
probably just rear screen projection of clouds. Yeah. I'm like,
oh my.
Speaker 1: God, this looks so bad. This looks so bad. But
the design is so weird. There's one point there in
the escape hut and it's leaking like this milky substance
right in. Parker's like, Oh no, no, that's fine, that's normal,
don't worry. It's insulating liquid. Yeah, And I was like,
wait a minute, are they going to be encased in
this is the liquid going to fill the entire ship,
and they're going to be able to be insulated by it,
so they would be able to withstand the shock waves of.
Speaker 2: The or turbulence of the ship or something. But that
number happens, right. I didn't even realize there was in
a ship within the ship, yeah, until I got objected.
How did even how did lift out even know they
were on board either too? I didn't understand that there's
a lot of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, this takes us to our Swiss cheese
and complaint department.
Speaker 2: And why do we call it Swiss cheese? Because although
this movie is delicious, it does have peggy pretty pant holes.
Speaker 1: Yes, if it doesn't have those piggy candles.
Speaker 2: Right, is it Penny? I should have said Penny, Sorry,
Penny pretty pant holes? All right?
Speaker 1: If it doesn't have those Penny pretty holes, we just
filed complaint with the complaint department.
Speaker 2: What do you have, Jason, Yeah, well I did choose
Penny pretty pant holes because she's wearing I don't know
what those pants are she's wearing at the end of
the movie, because they're just there.
Speaker 1: It's almost like she wrapped sheets around her somehow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's almost naked, and I'm not complaining, but it's
a weird design choice for the pants. So here's one
of my other complaints, obviously, but like bigger complaints. I
was really looking forward to listening to Bacca Robanzi and
the Hong Kong Cavaliers perform their music as rock stars.
Only get two minutes of it, not even not even
I don't think he even sings at all with when
they're doing the rock song, then he gets on the piano,
and then I'm not even sure Peter Weller is a
great singer, but then he sings a little bit, So
we don't really get to see them do their rock thing.
But it feels like that should have been a big
part of this for some reason. Later on with the
Big Booty and his partner, they're torturing Penny with like
ants and honey and they even attempt to drown her,
but it doesn't happen. Like there's a lack of follow through,
is my point. I wanted to see things. You get
led down a certain path, or you are about to
think oh or Bakaru Bonzai, you know. Inside the World
Watch one commands traveling Command Center Win a bago, which
is pretty awesome. I love the idea of that. We
know he's supposed to be a martial artist, and we
see him at like the end of the meditation with
his sword and he puts it away, and I'm like, oh,
does he do any martial arts in this at all? No? Right,
we're just kind of led on a little bit and
then there's no follow through.
Speaker 1: I wrote down nothing for Swiss Cheese a complaints departament,
just because this movie is so cheesy. I didn't know
where to begin. I didn't know where to begin. There's
just so much. It's so bizarre and weird. Movie itself
is cheesy. It's just it's just a big thing of cheese.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just we're led to believes that there's gonna
be all these cool things that are gonna happen, and
a lot of them just don't. So that was a complaint.
I had some really simple other ones. I thought there
would be better security at the Trenton Home for the Clinically, say,
I think Jonathan Banks is literally the only person working there. Yeah,
apparently seems like Yeah. Also, Buckeru Bonsai can just get
people out of jail by saying hey let her out.
How does that work? He's a world celebrity, it seems Yeah,
oh completely, I was just confused.
Speaker 1: You can't explain it? Yeah, yeah, what what was everyone's role?
Like Rawhide was kind of the right hand man and
mm hmm. But like what does perfect Johnny do or
perfect Tommy do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, perfect Tommy right reno? Yeah? What what are they
supposed to do there? Again? Just supposed to be all
around badasses. They just walk around with they're button down
shirts and jeans and a gun tucked in their pants.
That's what they just do in case something goes Hey,
why are they get called in to take care of it?
And then once in a while they'll be on a
computer analyzing something or doing some kind of tech work
in the world watch one command center in the Winnebago
or whatever. You know. It's like, I don't know, Yeah,
there's nothing in them. And why is why is the
president in traction? Or what happened to him? No idea,
you've recently just had back surgery. I don't know. Yeah, again,
it's a wild choice. Yep, all right, we can move on. Yeah,
you just had to go with it.
Speaker 1: That's that's all there is, too you just had to
go with it and pay attention to try to understand
what the how the plot is.
Speaker 2: That's all. Yeah, yeah, and that's yeah. When I started
watching this and I was taking it seriously, I was like,
oh no, this is a terrible movie. This is after
the jet car sequence. I'm like, this is really bad. Like, oh,
it's bad on purpose. I get it. At least we
think it is. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I'm kind of excited about this segment, Jason,
because I really want to know who you picked, because
literally every scene you could pick someone for this, and
we're talking about, Hey, it's that actor. So in this segment,
we spotlight a character actor you have seen in many
other films, an actor making their big screen debut, or
an actor it makes an oncredited cameo. It's hey, it's
an actor. Who do we choose this week?
Speaker 2: Well? Bill Ban did we choose John David Ashton? Did
we choose Jonathan Banks? Did we choose Hm? Who was
Dan HYDEA? You could just keep going, but this week
we chose for our Hey, it's that actor Yakov Smirnoff.
He plays the National security advisor. Uh, love me some
Yakov smeirenof. Yakov was born in Odessa or Ukrainian SSR USSR,
which is now just known as Odessa, Ukraine. He is
an actor, writer, and stand up comedian. I have very
fond memories of watching his stand up as a kid,
when he would perform as a naive Russian immigrant, of
course with a heavy Russian accent, and his trademark line
was what a Country? So talking about the US, here's
his eighties as an actor. He was in Moscow on
the Hudson in eighty four This and Buckle Robonds. I
obviously here in eighty four Brewsters Millions. He plays Vladimir.
That was in eighty five. He's in the Money Pit
plays shut Off. That was in eighty six. Then he
did twenty six episodes of the TV series What a
Country from eighty six to eighty seven. He was in
five episodes of one of your favorite shows, Bill Bent
Night Court. I remember Yakov. Yeah, there you go, Yakov Korolenko.
That was from eighty four to ninety over that time span.
After that, he only acted in a few other projects
based out over the next thirty years, and although in
twenty seventeen he was in an episode of Dice starring
Andrew Dice Clay, and I mentioned that only because fun fact,
he was once upon a time Andrew Dice Clay's roommate. Now,
I do love Yakov Samirenov in this because as he
is playing the National Security Advisor, he has a line
and he flubbs it and they kept the take in.
It's great. You gotta go watch it because he says
Strategic Space Command now reports all surveillance satellite communication is jammed.
He totally messes it up and it's just left in
the movie. Hilarious. I do want to mention this one
piece of trivia because I think this is a really
nice thing here. After the September eleven, two thousand and
one attacks on the World Trade Centers, he began working
on a mural to commemorate the event, just in time
for the first anniversary of the event. The mural was
printed on a huge banner with the quote the human
spirit is not measured by the size of the act,
but by the size of the heart. It was hung
from a nearby building where it was clearly visible from
ground zero for over a year. Yakov financed the banner
with one hundred thousand dollars of his own money, but
kept his donate anonymous for fear that people would see
it as a joke because of his reputation as a comedian.
Yakhov'smeir enough or hey, it's that actor this week.
Speaker 1: It is funny because when I was watching that scene,
I was like, Wow, that looks a lot like spair Enough.
I'm like, oh, that can't be and then the credits
are my, holy shit, that was That's hilarious. Yeah, yeah,
I guess there's a whole bunch of people in that scene.
I was like, I can't believe that's those people. Well,
and Yakov's sma enough sharing a scene, right, Uh. Time
to move on to facts and trivia. What are some
facts in trivia we have about the adventures of Bakaru
Bonzai across the Eighth Dimension.
Speaker 2: Well, let's get into it. There is a scene in
the movie where Reno and New Jersey go through a
room with a watermelon in a machine. Really out of
place for the scene. Reno actually says, I'll explain it later.
But in the Blu Ray audio commentary, filmmakers explained that
they had a confrontational relationship with one of the producers
when they stopped receiving notes from the production, they decided
to put the watermelon in a scene with no mention
about it anywhere on the script. When they received no
questions about it, they deduced that no one was screening
the dailies anymore and they could keep making the film
the way they wanted as long as they remained within
the budget. So strange. Yeah, I love it though. So.
Speaker 1: Jamie Lee Curtis played buck Ru's mother in a flashback,
but the scene was deleted, but the scene is available
on a DVD release as an optional prequel or a
special feature, and Jamie Lee Curtis is visible in a
photo on the dashboard of the jet car in the
wide screen version. Now, the version I saw did have
that opening scene with James Lee Curtis as the mom,
and it's basically a home movie footage of Buckeroo as eight,
and it basically shows one of the tests for the oscillator.
Buckeru's dad, I think, is supposed to be the driver
and it was sabotaged. His parents died in an explosion.
Speaker 2: O got it? Yeah, that's cool. You got to see
it though. Yeah. In the film Star Trek First Contact,
the oscillation Overthruster is also on the bulkhead of ZEPHYRM.
Cochrane's ship when he William Riker and Jordi LaForge launch
on his ship. It's right there next to Commander Riker's head.
In another Star Trek connection, the quote no matter where
you go, there you are appears on the dedication plaque
on the USS Excelsior.
Speaker 1: John Lithgalo's dialect coach, Roberto Terminilli, was a tailor on
the twentieth century Fox Lot with a heavy Italian accent.
John had Roberto speak his lines from the script into
a tape recorder, which he then used to practice the accent.
John then got him credit in the movie as a
dialect coach for his help.
Speaker 2: Love It, Absolutely, Love It. I mentioned that there are
a lot of cool names in this movie. Well. Many
names and terms were taken from Thomas Pinchon's book The
Crying of Lot forty nine, most notably the company name
Yo Yo Dyne. To this day, there is a Yo
Yo Dyning dot com which serves as a fan site
for the film. Yo Yo Dne itself was Pinchon's thinly
veiled reference to rocket Dine, a major defense industry contractor
and manufacture of rocket engines, founded just after World War Two.
I went to the website. It's still up, oh nic.
It's just a very simple page and you can click
on things that will lead you to Buckero Bonzi stuff,
But it's kind of funny Yoyo dyne dot com.
Speaker 1: When it came time to film the end title sequence
where Buckeru and his friends are walking around a dry
Los Angeles aqueduct and step to the music, the music
wasn't ready, so composer Michael Bottaker told the film crew
to use the song Uptown Girl by Billy Joel as
a placeholder because it was the exact same tempo, and
the scenes were filmed with Uptown Girl blaring from a
boonbox tied to the back of the comic truck. And
if you go on YouTube, someone did this. They put
Uptown Girl corusic over the so you could see that, yes,
it does work.
Speaker 2: That's great. Well, this might be why there's a little
bit of confusion happening with just the making of this movie.
The original director of photography of the film is Jordan
Cronin with who famously shot Blade Runner. The filmmakers specifically
wanted their film to be rich in color and texture,
for which cronin With was specifically known. However, several weeks
into filming, producer David Begelman had cronin With replaced with
Fred J. Cohne and camp against the wishes of the crew,
including director WD Richter, in order to give the film
its campy, flat visual appearance, which the filmmakers had never
originally intended. Scenes shot by Croninwe still remain in the
final cut, including the famous nightclub scene featuring the line
wherever you go, there you are okay.
Speaker 1: Time to move on to box office. So The Adventures
at buck Ru Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension hit theaters
on August tenth, nineteen eighty four, opening on a whopping
two hundred and thirty six screens stationwide I mean an
estimated budget of seventeen million. The movie went on to
earn just six point two million at the North American
box office when it debuted. The movie opened in the
sixteenth spot at the box office during a crowded summer
pack with hits such as Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones and Templeo
Doom and Star Trek three The Search for Spock. By
the end of its theatrical run, it ranked as the
one hundred and first highest grossing movie of nineteen eighty four.
Despite its disappointing theatrical run, Bakuru Bonzai slowly found life
on cable TV and home video, then moving on to reviews.
When growing up in the eighties, we would watch sneak
previews with Geene Cisco and Roger Ebert to hear their
reviews and watch clips of upcoming movies. Their review of
the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension was split.
Rogers stated it was bad but never gives up. He
reluctantly gave it a thumbs down with admiration for its
flashes of brilliance. Gene enjoyed the film creativity and offbeat
humor and predicted it would become a cult film. Both
acknowledged that it's bizarre storytelling might confuse mainstream audiences. They
especially praise the cast, including Peter Weller and John lithgals
widely over the top performance. Ron Tomatoes gives it a
meter score of sixty eight percent, with a popcorn Meter
score of seventy five percent. It also has an IMDb
rating of six point two, so this takes us to
additional thoughts and questions. We have any additional thoughts or
questions about Buckeroo.
Speaker 2: Let's see, we talked about one of your favorite scenes,
which is with John Mdall. Is that is that correct? Yes,
kind of laying out the whole plot here in a
way and one aspect, and I was just thinking, why
didn't the Black Lectroids in their spaceship just come down
to Earth and kill John Warfin themselves? Why charge Buckeroo
with the tap of taking out Wharfin and then the
whole convoluted plot of the Black Electroids having to attack
Small and Scrussia, thus triggering a nuclear war which would
take out the Red Electroids. Why didn't they just come
down and take care of business themselves. They sent John
Parker down to help Buckeroo bond Zi.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly made the movie a little bit shorter. Yeah,
I don't know. I don't know an answer for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just it just seemed like they were overthinking
it a little bit and they just kind of put
it all on Buckeroo Bonsie to save the day, oh.
Speaker 1: Peaceful race, fear of being discovered. I don't know, I
don't have a solid answer. But yeah, they should have
just took out John Wharfin from the get go right, Yeah,
I mean yeah, I think they could have if they
wanted to. But it just leads me to another thought
as well. And I didn't know if this was on
purpose of some kind of parody or homage if you will,
But John m All talks about having overthrown John Wharfin,
who was the leader of this warrior cast of the
Black Electroids then or now Red Electroids, and how then
they imprisoned these quote unquote bad electroids in the eighth dimension.
This felt very superman esque to me, very general Zod
being sent to you know again, leader of a warrior cast,
kind of being thrown into the phantom zone.
Speaker 2: Does that makes sense? Yes, I don't know. I just
saw a direct correlation there. Just yeah, that's interesting, just
an observation.
Speaker 1: Didn't think about that. I just want to know how
the one group of Red Electroids actually got.
Speaker 2: Out, So that's that was actually I don't know if
I should have put that in my complaints because that
was glossed over supposedly when and I read this either
au on Wikipedia or IMDb. I don't know. In the
research somewhere during my favorite scene when we see the
flashback of at that moment, Emilio Lizardo testing his oscillation
over Thruster and failing, he manages to break halfway through
into the eighth dimension, and supposedly that caused the escape. Okay,
it's never clearly explained in the actual movie. Yeah, I
guess you just got to put one on one together. Yeah,
you got to connect a lot of dots somehow in
this There's.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff because I needn't understand. Here's another
actor we didn't mention because it was a Was it
Matt Clark who was a defense Secretary of Defense? Is
he the one from The Incredible Hulk?
Speaker 2: Oh? Is he? I wouldn't know that, probably.
Speaker 1: Okay, because he asks the company to build a fighter
jet and they're using the the defense money to rebuild
their spaceship right at Yo Yo Dane Propulsion. So is
he supposed to be a good guy a bad guy?
Speaker 2: I think is supposed to be a bad guy, right,
because then he tries to take the oscillation over Thruster
and put it into the jet car, right because he
wants himself as a weapon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, But he's not in cahoots with the let
Troy's because.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. That was just another weird ass
just thing in this movie, like who is he? Why
is he there? Why is he in the middle of
all this? What's the purpose of his character? I love
when he does manage to get the Hong Kong Cavaliers
through security and into Yoyo Dane posted by distracting the
two guards and he's writing there, He's like, I want
to get I want to get your names. What's your name? John? Yah? Yah?
What's your name John Smallberries? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And then you don't notice this giant bust just driving
through the entrance gate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. A couple other funny things. I just
wanted to you go ahead, if you have a you
what are your thoughts? Okay, just a couple of funny things.
When during the that final sequence at Yo Yo Dine,
they call it the electroid bivowhac area, which is kind
of oh yes, and where one of the electroids goes
to sound alarm. Stenciled in bright pink letters on the
wall to the left of all those electrical circuit boxes
is find the crow shoe missing circuit win a free
trip to planet ten. And then one of my other
favorite lines is actually by the general in the room
with the President and National Security Advisor Security Defense. He says,
I'm so scared right now. I'm barely holding my fudge.
All right, something like I'm barely holding my fudge right
now is what he says. And then the woman yells
at him, is like, get your shit together or whatever.
But I couldn't believe that was an actual line.
Speaker 1: Hip all ready to go on to review. Yeah, let's
do it, okay, on a scale of one to five, Johns,
what you give I'm gonna say this for the last time,
the Adventures of Buck ru Bonzai across the eath mention.
Speaker 2: I'm really wavering here because I had a lot of
laughs just talking about it with you, which means it
had some real entertainment value. And I did think this
was a lot of fun. So I'm going to go
with three point five John's. I was going to give
it three for a moment there, but I'm going to
up it to three point five because of its cult status.
It does have its fans. I'm doing it for Rob
Huckstad out there, wherever you may be. I hope you're well,
I think this film was very ambitious and it doesn't
totally work. Unfortunately, the writing got in the way and
the plot is too convoluted, so it's distracting and that's
very unfortunate. But if you can take a step back
and look at it for what it is, this is
a funny movie. A lot of thought was put into it.
There's some great performances, especially by Lithgow, and it is
a campy, cheese fest. You just are always asking why
did they do this? Why did they do that? And
if you can just let that go and don't care,
you're going to have a time. I'm going three point five.
I admire the effort.
Speaker 1: I'm right there with you three and a half. Quickly,
here's an actor we did not mention because it was
one when I saw him on screen was driving me crazy,
like what have I seen him before? And that was
Bill Henderson, who was at Casper Linley, who was part
of the what is it the Blue.
Speaker 2: The Blue Blaze Irregulars.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what have I seen this guy in?
And he was in City Slickers. He was one of
the the trails. So I was driving up the wall
and I found out he was a singer too. I
was like, holy crap, that's really cool three and a
half for me. Yes, the plot, Holy molly, I've never.
Speaker 2: Seen anything so confusing in my life.
Speaker 1: But that cast, bring that cast together, and they just
looked like they were having fun. Yeah, it's a weird movie.
I just don't understand how this movie got made. I
really don't. I think it just blows my mind that
someone was able to convince someone to put out seventeen
million dollars, which is a lot of money back then,
to make this movie with the thought that they were
going to be sequels. Yeah, but it's still enjoyable. I
think it's just because it's so.
Speaker 2: Off the wall. You just have to know.
Speaker 1: You just have to realize going to this movie's gonna
be off the wall. It's hard to figure out the plot,
which hopefully we helped you out talking about this through
this episode. But just seeing all these people that were
in this movie, I don't I can't think of another
movie like this where it just seems like every scene
I'm like, oh my god, I recognize that person. Oh
my god, to recognize that person.
Speaker 2: Sure, it was weird in a way.
Speaker 1: You wish Hollywood would take a chance on movies like this.
But it, yeah, definitely needs to be pared down a
little bit. But the idea itself, I appreciate. The execution
isn't quite there. I don't know. There's something about this movie.
I like, I'm not a diehard. But if you told
me you love this movie, I could see it. If
you told me this movie sucks and you hate it,
I can see that too. I couldn't argue with you
for or against. I'm like, whatever, your opinion of this
movie is one hundred percent, get it. It's not like
someone telling me Star Wars is the worst movie ever.
I'm like, come on, man, you're totally wrong there. Yeah,
but yes, if you said I hate Buckeru Bonzai, I'm like, okay, yeah,
I could see it might not be your hupetea.
Speaker 2: This is just a weird wild ride, and uh I
look forward to revisiting again down the line. See how
I feel about it, knowing what I know now, Yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Had to see if you can find that footage that
you missed on YouTube. Maybe for sure on there, Jamie
Lee curnis'd be interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly the DVD has there's DVD releases that have
a lot more things added to this that could explain things,
especially I forget what the final title card was about
with the the name of the sequel, Oh crap. In
the original script, Buckeroo was supposed to have an arch
enemy named Hanoi Zan, who was never seen but reference
to by Buckeroo and the other characters. All scenes containing
dialogue regarding Zan were deleted from the film's theatrical release,
but are now available on DVD. Zen was supposed to
be the mysterious head of a crime syndicate called the
World Crime League, and also the man who murdered Buckeroo's
parents and wife Peggy, which we do see in that
opening scene that you missed. So that explains that, and
then explains why the sequel is called The Adventures of
bucker Rebounds, I think, and versus something that we're fighting
versus the World Crime League or whatever. Yeah, that explains that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, with that, that wraps up this week's episode.
Thanks so much trying out with us, We really appreciate it.
If you enjoy the show, be sure to follow us
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a review. Nice little better Curious for more you would
be check out All eightiesmoviespodcast dot com for everything you
need to know about the show. We'll catch you next
time as we jump into another unforgettable gin from the
greatest movie decade of all time in nineteen eighties. Until then,
stay awesome and have an excellent day. We are not
in the eighth dimension. We are over a new Jersey.
Hope is not lost. Thanks for staying up with us.
Speaker 2: Good Night,