Movie Moments XLV: September 2020 (Bill & Ted Edition)

After watching the Matrix movies a couple of weeks ago, I’ve decided to dive into the Keanu renaissance.





Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 03 September 2020, streamed via Amazon Video

• Y’all the font action of this movie is WILD.
  
  
• WYLD STALLYNS. I’d totally forgotten about the second Y.
• Why are HS seniors being asked about Napoleon? What the hell is their history class grading scale that one exam can get them a passing grade after failing everything else? And did they pass ALL their other classes? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
• Pretty much everything about the Missy situation is gross. Yet somehow the boys remain adorable? “Remember when I asked her to the prom?” “SHUT UP TED.”
• "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K."
  
  
  I think...I think I might love Ted, you guys.
• OH MAN, not just a phone booth, but a phone book? Crazy historical times.
• I want to know everything about the saloon lady who straight up swing-kicks a dude through a window to save Billy the Kid.
  
• 
  I dunno, y’all, this shit checks out.
• The boys got armor and swords, and decided to re-enact a scene from Star Wars? Cannot even, my friends.
• “YOU KILLED TED YOU MEDIEVAL DICKWEED.”
• Oh, ugh, era-accurate homophobia. It’s okay to hug, you dumbasses.
• I mean, clearly Bill is the smarter one, but do we ever pay proper homage to Ted as a glorious lyricist?
• This entire future council scene is, I do not kid, beautiful and perfect.
  
  
  
• Having Freud smoking a cigar when we meet him is a cheap joke, but delightful.
• Ted’s shrug when he gives up on fake names and introduces Abraham Lincoln as Abraham Lincoln is great.
• I wish they didn’t make Genghis Khan the only animalistic dude. Era-accurate racism too, I guess.
• "Today, leaders are impeached rather than beheaded."
• Raging Waters and, indeed, any water park, would be so much more awesome if there were no other people around.
• Joan of Arc succumbing to the beauty-industrial complex is an epic tragedy. Joan of Arc seeing an aerobics class and thinking, I could do that way better? Simply epic.
• Is Socrates wingman to Billy the Kid or vice versa? “We’re from history.”
• Is San Dimas this white? I don’t remember San Dimas being so white.
• Genghis Khan using all the sports equipment to wreck everything does make a strong case for athletes having a particular kind of genius.
• How can they possibly be almost late to their presentation if they are in possession of a time machine? BOYS. And yet they completely NAILED the time-travel object-needing situations.
  
  
• 
  
• Seriously, though, that history presentation frickin’ ROCKS. But also...it wasn’t any crappier than any of the other speeches we saw.
  
  
• How did they not have Joan of Arc and Genghis Khan duel? WTF, dudes?
• "Maybe we should start learning how to play.” Maybe you’re right, Ted.” Aw, boys.
• So wait, do the princesses just...stay in the garage?

So, uh, it wasn’t until just now that I realized how many of my linguistic quirks are due to this movie, pretty much.

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, 04 September 2020, streamed via Amazon Video
I remember not liking this when I first watched it, but I legit only remember that the Grim Reaper was involved. And push-ups? And...Twister?

• Yeah, the automatons peeling off their evil Bill and evil Ted flesh masks is a thing straight out of my nightmares.
  
  
  
• Okay, self, remember: Blonde princess is Joanna, brunette princess is Elizabeth. Still unknown: Where do the princesses live? “Medieval England, Iowa.” How do they have licenses to drive? Who pays for their rent? I remain chock-full of logistical questions.
• Wait, Ted’s graduated high school. How is he still being threatened with military boarding school? I AM SO CONFUSED.
• Wow, the Missy situation continues to be gross. But also, I would like to salute her on her game? I think? Is that where I need to land with this?
• WHY ARE YOU ALL GETTING MARRIED. YOU ARE NINETEEN FREAKIN’ YEARS OLD. I mean, I guess this is actually rather late for the ladies o’ medieval England, but seriously, Bill and Ted?
• It’s kind of weird, but even though Evil Bill and Evil Ted have almost 100% the same mannerisms of Our, Uh, Heroes, the lack of goofy good-heartedness makes them just, like, annoying instead of boys just in need of some big ol’ hugs.
  
  
  
• Wait, Evil Ted just 100% objectified the ladies. That’s...weird. Our, Uh, Heroes have 100% pedestaled their fiancees, but they aren’t, like, gross about it. (Uh...then some casual attempted date rape? Geez. But I agree with Bill: Way to go, Joanna.)
• Ah, they kept their casual era-accurate homophobia. Sigh.
• So the desaturated Bill and Ted are a nice and non-intensive way to signal their deadness. I am impressed, in fact.
• Kudos to the actor playing Ted’s dad, because that was some damn good impression of Ted. The dude possessed by Bill wasn’t very good, but then again, Bill doesn’t have as many signature bodily quirks. Hm.
• Uh, Ted’s dad’s house is way fancier than it was in the last movie. Is...is Missy the one with the money? Wait, why can Missy hear ghosts? Why does Missy have a book to banish evil? Is Missy a MAGE? Hold on, y’all, I have to reevaluate everything about Missy’s life now.
• The boys falling through nothingness for--I counted--a full 45 seconds, is worthy of remark.
  
  
  
• Seriously, the folks that designed afterlife sets are brill. There are no 90-degree angles in hell, the palettes are all monotone, and the ceilings are all either too low or too high. It’s a way more effective representation of nightmares than anything I’ve seen done with fancy CGI.
  
  
  
• Battleship. Clue. Tiny magnetic football. Twister. Death is a sore loser, y’all.
• Whoa, NO WAY is Benjamin Franklin in heaven. NO WAY.
• Wait, are the princesses living with Missy in Ted’s dad’s house? How did they explain this to Ted’s dad? (I assume Missy knew everything since she is apparently a mage and all.)
• The appearance of two random alien scientists seems unnecessary, but by this point, does it even matter? No. It does not.
• Why is there a payphone in the middle of an aisle in Builders’ Emporium? Did they use to have public payphones inside stores like that? I honestly no longer know.
• Death casually telling a smoker he’ll see him real soon is some excellent anti-smoking propaganda.
• Station is totally proto-Groot.
• Wait, the San Dimas Battle of the Bands is being broadcast worldwide?
• LOL William Sadler didn’t just play Death, he cameoed as Australian William Sadler. Adorbs.
• I salute whoever decided to put a giant SAND on their sandbag.
• Listen, I dig George Carlin, but he is NOT an acceptable substitute for Pam Grier. YOU MONSTERS.
• I do not approve of somewhat-futurish Bill and Ted’s beards, but that they’re both wearing their babies in little backpacks makes it okay.
• AIR GUITAR FOUND TO ELIMINATE SMOG.
• Why are Elizabeth and Joanna not on any magazine covers? That is some bullshit, Bill & Ted Universe.

Bill & Ted Face the Music, 05 September 2020, streamed via Amazon Video

• Missy. Girl. You’re marrying your former stepson? You’ve gone evil mage, haven’t you?
• Wait, Billie and Thea are Little Bill and Little Ted? They named their daughters after each other? This is an amazing and perfect twist.
• I still have many questions about Elizabeth and Joanna, guys. But they’ve killed at acclimation in the past thirty years, I guess? And yet they still have the accents? And they stayed married to these two adorable doofuses?
• Or, alternatively: This movie is trying too hard to make the story conform to heteronormative parameters when actually there’s partially asexual polyamory happening. Yet I love it still.
  
  
  
• Also, it’s important for me to point out that teenage me is deeply in love with Billie right now.
  
  
  
• Wait, $6400 for the Les Paul? That guitar played WEMBLEY, you monsters.
• WAIT. Preston & Logan are the heroes of their history? And they assumed it was Bill and Ted? Even though it just as well could have been Joanna and Elizabeth? Or (as we know) Thea and Billie? Even 600 years in the future, everything is sexist.
• It’s rather charming they let Keanu and Winter look like they look their actual ages. Less charming that they, uh, cast women at least a decade younger than them as Elizabeth and Joanna.
• "Us being here is humorously ironic.” “Do you believe us?” “No.” Not at all.”
• I actually find Holland Taylor and Kristen Schaal an acceptable Rufus substitute.
• The addition of a terminator is pretty excessive, but I suppose they couldn’t help it.
• Jimi Hendrix and young Louis Armstrong? Mozart and Ling Lun? Grom and Kid Cudi? The girls have got hella good taste.
• The journey of Our, Uh, Heroes is excessively nonsense, but they’re having so much fun doing it that it’s hard to resent them.
  
  
  
• I continue to not understand how anyone can run out of time when they’re in time-traveling machines. Also:
  “So this is some kind of error in our holographic dual field? Or is it a Wilsonian loop causing a temporal singularity?”
  “Seems to me a classical tautological causal circuit.”
  “I don’t know. Seems like textbook entanglement to me.”
  “Must say, your understanding of our dire circumstance is most impressive.”
  I love everything and everybody.
• Yeah, the fancy CGI version of hell is not at all as impressive as the silly underworld of Bogus Journey.
• Our, Uh, Heroes broke the reality-saving song so the terminator would kill them so they could go to hell to save their daughters. I love them. I love them so much. I mean, they know the dude who can get them out, BUT STILL.
• Kelly and Terminator Dennis have a bright future as star-crossed lovers.
• Death, playing a tiny imaginary bass instead of a tiny imaginary violin. William Sadler is a gift.
• "Who is it?” “BILL AND TED.” Keanu Reeves. Keanu. I love and respect your talent, so I say this as an extremely sincere compliment: That delivery of “BILL AND TED” was the best acting you’ve ever done.
• "Girls, you’re not here to back us.” “We’re here to back you.” “We’re your band.” BOYS. YOUR HEARTS. I mean, like, they came to that realization on their own, even.
• They may be, apparently, only sometimes good musicians, but Bill and Ted are pretty goddamn good at using time travel to save the day.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, Thea and Billie are SUPERB mix engineers. “Face the Music” frickin’ slaps.
  
  

These movies should not be as good as they are, but they continue to endure in near-perfection. I may have teared up at the end. Be excellent to each other.

Also, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters gave a graduate message to San Dimas High School this past year, and it’s the most delightful thing that has happened this entire quarantine.