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Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure (DVD)
by Hoggle-DR1749
Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure is definitely a comedy classic. It always has me bursting out laughing and the concept of how historical figures would manage in modern day times is put out brilliantly.
Starring the 'Wyld Stallyns' consisting of two friends- Bill es-Preston Esquire (Alex Winters) and Ted Theodore Logan (the ... immortal Keanu Reeves) who are rather, shall we say, not adept in the intellectual- or even any, area. So much so, they are in fact failing every class. Their only hope of escaping a very scary threat of being separated due to Ted's father's insistence that if Ted gets kicked out of High school he will be sent to Military school to learn some discipline, is getting an A+ on their history report on "how would key historical figures of each of the key time periods would view San Demas today."
Turns out this dream of theirs is more important than they thought, as the awesome Rufus, (George Carlin) who's from the future, defies time and space in a telephone box (i think he's secretly an incarnation of the Doctor we don't know about) to tell them to, and help them pass their history test.
After the weird '69 dudes' scene, the Wyld Stallyns set off, on the way picking up Socrates (or So-crates) Sigman Freud, Beethoven, Napoleon, Billy the Kid, Ghengis Khan, Joan of Arc and, of course, Abraham Lincoln. Along the way Bill and Ted meet these beautiful princesses who turn out to be the love of their lives.
In even further timey-wimey fun, Bill and Ted then lose all of their historical figures in a shopping mall, where crazy things happen ending up in all of them getting arrested by none other than Ted's dad.
This is a 'most triumphant' film that is hilariously funny and deals with problems that comes with dealing with time travel in a simplistic manner that gives one only a minor headache.
My personal favourite moment of this film has to be when the historical figures try to get to grips with the modern terrors that is an American shopping mall. It's just done so beautifully that you could probably imagine the crazy antics they get up to actually happening if they actually came to modern times. You have to watch it to see what i mean. Along with that Bill and Ted in the Old Western scene where they pick up Billy the kid and teach us how not to play poker.
Full of simplistic yet effective humour that is fun for every age group to watch and will make your sides hurt for the whole 90 minutes it's on.
Starring: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter
Co-Starring: Robert V. Barron, Al Leong, Terry Camilleri, Rod Loomis, Clifford Davis, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Jane Wiedlin, Bernie Casey and George Carlin as Rufus.
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Shirley Valentine (DVD)
by GentleGenius
RELEASED: 1989, Cert. 15
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 109 mins
DIRECTOR/PRODUCER/MUSIC: Lewis Gilbert
SCREENPLAY: Willy Russell
MAIN CAST:-
Pauline Collins as Shirley Valentine/Bradshaw
Tom Conti as Costas
Alison Steadman as Jane
Bernard Hill as Joe Bradshaw
Joanna ... Lumley as Marjorie Majors
Julia McKenzie as Gillian
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FILM ONLY REVIEW
Shirley Bradshaw is in her forties, she's married to Joe, she's bored, she's a drudge and a skivvy.
When Jane invites Shirley to accompany her on a Greek holiday that she won in a competition, Shirley is doubtful at first, but agrees after not too much persuasion.
Once on the holiday island, Shirley is not only fascinated by the sunshine and location....she is drawn to Costas, a local bar owner.
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Immediately, I was irritated by the opening music, as it led me to feel that the forthcoming film would be mawkish, pretentious and truly terrible. This music, sung by a female, reminded me of those songs performed by soap stars that would occasionally disgrace our pop charts during the early to mid-1980s.
The film begins with Shirley speaking much of the dialogue in narrative format (continuing in that style throughout), and I became even more irritated, as the bored housewife syndrome is something I am, perhaps unfairly, a bit scornful about. I also could recognise the parts of the dialogue which were intended to be amusing, but such is as far removed from my own brand of sense of humour as it's possible to be.
However, even though I was irritated, I wasn't bored....so continued to watch.
The acting overall is quite good, although I was a bit disappointed that Alison Steadman wasn't given a more complex role, as she is one of the UK's very best actresses. In Shirley Valentine, Pauline Collins has by far the major role, and she took it on very well, offering a mix of that kind of comedy acting which I have a problem with, and something a little deeper.....a little more serious when the situation called for it. I wouldn't imagine that the roles of the rest of the main cast were too demanding though.
As I continued to watch, I became rather annoyed with myself, especially when the storyline moved away from Manchester, to a lovely location in the Greek Islands....largely because the food for thought that Shirley was digesting, touched upon a few things inside of my own mind, but for different reasons to hers. I found these parts of the film, those with Shirley in reflective mood, made me squirm a bit, but they did hold me in there, watching with interest through to the end.
Aside from the opening theme tune which, as said above, I hated, I was unaware of a running musical score for the most part, but when I did notice it here and there, it made me cringe due to the 'let's bring out the violins' syndrome whenever a tender or poignant moment reared its head.
Perhaps Shirley Valentine is a little better than I was expecting it, for me the best part taking place in the Greek Islands, as such brought out a slightly deeper, more serious side to the character of Shirley.
As he was also responsible for Educating Rita, it appears that the director of Shirley Valentine may have a penchant for creating films that focus on bored, working-class, middle-aged housewives who are given a chance to examine and walk into the light. I do think though, that taken as a whole, Shirley Valentine has the upper hand over Educating Rita, in that it does - at least for me - offer far more food for serious thought....but, the screenplay is just as questionable (something a bit like the TV series Butterflies, from the late 1970s/early 1980s). I like the dialogue in my films to bear more resemblance to real life and how real people truly speak, not this twittery, flapping, poor humour-tinged prattling which reminds me of the type of people who have wooden plaques on their living-room walls saying "You don't have to be made to live here, but it helps"....those people often being as far away from quirky/zany mad as it's possible to be.
Stepping for a moment into my own lighter side, it was rather nice to, even though it was from a distance, see Tom Conti naked, but I wish he'd have lost that ridiculous moustache.....still, I suppose the makeup department wanted him to look as much like a typecast middle-aged Greek taverna owner as possible.
Whilst watching Shirley Valentine, I at times felt an enormous sense of frustration; not for Shirley's lifestyle back home with her husband in wet Manchester (or was it supposed to be Liverpool?), but for being caught up in the lure of a Mediterranean lifestyle which when lived on a day to day basis and outside of holiday mode, probably isn't that different to trudging to Sainsbury's in the rain and comparing the prices of different soap powders on a bi-weekly basis. It is so easy to romanticise ourselves into believing life is better outside of our own little sphere and that the sun shines more brightly over the other man's grass, and Shirley Valentine for me hit its target spot-on when making me look back at my own existence, reminiscing over the things I did right and the things I did wrong, but in a very different way to Shirley, as I never fell into the dull marriage/bored housewife trap (well I had the dull marriage, but was never a bored housewife....also, I did something about the dull marriage before the galloping rot destroyed us both).
I could prattle on relentlessly, no doubt filling several verbose tomes in order to outline the Russian doll syndrome which various parts of Shirley Valentine sparked off in my mind, but sadly to go too deeply into them here would result in this review being riddled with serious spoilers.
So, to summarise, I will wind down by saying that although I found the situation, the humour and most of the dialogue in Shirley Valentine somewhat questionable in that I prefer something more substantial, the film did take me by surprise in that it eventually turned out not to be so vacuous as I was initially anticipating. For that very reason, and for the Pandora's Box of thoughts it opened inside of my head, its star rating moves up a couple of notches higher than I otherwise would have awarded.
I'd guess that Shirley Valentine is probably a film which would appeal to women more than men, as it does reach out and touch on certain aspects of certain women's lives that may need some attention, examination, change and a bit of TLC. All in all it's well worth a watch, but I'd like to have seen it constructed and presented differently.
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At the time of writing, Shirley Valentine can be purchased from Amazon as follows:-
New: from £2.10 to £29.99
Used: from 66p to £14.99
Collectible: Currently only one copy available @ £6.95
Some items on Amazon are available for free delivery within the UK, but where this doesn't apply, a £1.26 charge should be added to the above figures.
Thanks for reading!
~~ Also published on ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~
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