Bill & Ted Face The Music

[Ray de Galles]

So, finally we will see the conclusion of the most important trilogy in movie history. It's out in cinemas in the UK on Wednesday and I'm cautiously optimistic based on the trailer and initial reaction from the U.S. release. If Tenet wasn't the time-twisting intellectual blockbuster to tempt you back in to the theatres then surely this will be?

[gavc23]

We’re very excited about it in our house, and the (no other word for it) excellent song and video by Weezer on the soundtrack has been on rotation for the past few weeks.

Bogus Journey ripped off the plot of (of all things) Kiss Meet The Phantom of The Park. As did the S Club 7 film actually.

[Felicity, I guess so]

The trailer I saw before Tenet didn’t sell it to me, sorry.

[Guy Profumo]

Judging by the trailer and posters for the film Keanu Reeves has put in some bloody hard paper rounds compared to Alex Winter.

[pebblethefish]

In fairness, Keanu has also been in the Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and the one about a surfer (Break Point?). All I've seen Alex Winter in was playing fourth vampire in Lost Boys. He's probably had to get a job as a chef or something.

[Ray de Galles]

I have thought there was something strange about the way Keanu's face looks in the trailer, especially as it's usual to comment on how well preserved he looks for someone in his mid-fifties.

I even wondered if his face had been somehow digitally aged as there is a slight artificiality to it. Perhaps he's just proving why he's normally bearded.

I'd heard that Weezer song but not realised it was from the film. I wonder what the rest of the soundtrack will consist of given that the music for'...Go To Hell' (as it should always be called, I hate the fact they changed the name) was unapologetically hair metal.

[Auntie Beryl]

Alex Winter was directing music videos at one point, I remember reading a MM/NME Bomb The Bass article which described a video shoot of theirs.

[Guy Profumo]

In fairness, Keanu has also been in the Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and the one about a surfer (Break Point?). All I've seen Alex Winter in was playing fourth vampire in Lost Boys. He's probably had to get a job as a chef or something.

Voice as one of the TMNT on TV, wasn't it?

[Various Artist]

I have thought there was something strange about the way Keanu's face looks in the trailer, especially as it's usual to comment on how well preserved he looks for someone in his mid-fifties.

I even wondered if his face had been somehow digitally aged as there is a slight artificiality to it. Perhaps he's just proving why he's normally bearded.

I found it equally disconcerting. Hollywood usually does a good job making people look eternally youngish on screen when it wants to, and Keanu still normally looks preternaturally youthful anyway even in pretty candid snaps, yet the trailer definitely makes him look weirdly – and, yes, strangely artificially – older than he normally does. I can only assume it's the lack of the beard too, plus perhaps an odd side-effect of the digital 'stock' and/or postprocessing that couple to make him appear peculiarly waxy and unreal in the same way as, say, Orlando Bloom does in the Hobbit films.

[Patrick Thistle]

In fairness, Keanu has also been in the Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and the one about a surfer (Break Point?). All I've seen Alex Winter in was playing fourth vampire in Lost Boys. He's probably had to get a job as a chef or something.

Er..... hate to be that pedant, but he wasn't in Interview With the Vampire. I think you're thinking of Constantine.

[Levin]

I think they are thinking of Bram Stoker's Dracula

[Patrick Thistle]

I think they are thinking of Bram Stoker's Dracula

Oh yes, probably.

[Ray de Galles]

SLIGHT SPOILERS

Well, it's very sweet, very silly, very throwaway fun.

It's only really funny in patches, primarily in the final third when Death reappears and new character Dennis develops but also when Bill & Ted meet future versions of themselves and on the odd occasion when Keanu channels John Wick.

The ultimate theme of redemption through your daughters was lovely and the actor who played Bill's daughter gave a particularly fantastic performance/homage to Keanu.

Strange that "the song" ultimately sounds like an Arcade Fire cast-off, mind.

I didn't realise until tonight that Hot Pepsi has already reviewed it in Current Watching on its US release a few weeks ago and I think he summed it up pretty well.

[Hot Pepsi]

In fairness, Keanu has also been in the Matrix, Interview with a Vampire, and the one about a surfer (Break Point?). All I've seen Alex Winter in was playing fourth vampire in Lost Boys. He's probably had to get a job as a chef or something.

Point Break. A classic of the genre.

Alex Winter has had a fairly successful career as a producer and TV director. A lot of animated shows and documentaries. He recently did a nice doc called Showbiz Kids about the experiences of child actors in Hollywood. He's working on one on Frank Zappa. But yeah, if you did a list of famous acting duos whose later careers were vastly different, they'd be high on the list.

The ultimate theme of redemption through your daughters was lovely and the actor who played Bill's daughter gave a particularly fantastic performance/homage to Keanu.

Yeah, they do a great job of channeling that 80's Californian dumbass dialect without overdoing it.

That's Brigette Payne Lundy. They (they go by they, not she) are the break-out star of Atypical. Thea, Ted's daughter, is played by Samara Weaving who, I believe is a pretty big star in Australia but is just starting to be well known in the US. Hugo Weaving is her uncle, apparently.

[Levin]

SPOILERS



I saw it the other day in the cinema, there was a guy who just kept talking all the way through so my enjoyment was affected by that. But it wasn't anything more than ok. It's very light, the timing seemed off and they never gave punchlines the time to really hit. To be contradictory though, it seemed a bit flabby as well. The core cast performed well enough but it needed more, something.

It speaks volumes that they had to create a prehistoric drummer (I'm not even going to touch on the accuracy of that) and use a mythical (usually male) flautist to get non male, non european band members. Ugh, and Mozart again, why not go for Clara Schumann? And while I'm on here why why not go and get a jazz musician who couldn't have played with Jimi? Robert Johnson? Or would that have been too many guitars?

It's just not as much fun as the others, it's far too aware of how 'important' Bill and Ted films are, too reverent.

Also, who is Kid Cudi?

[Hot Pepsi]

SPOILERS



I saw it the other day in the cinema, there was a guy who just kept talking all the way through so my enjoyment was affected by that. But it wasn't anything more than ok. It's very light, the timing seemed off and they never gave punchlines the time to really hit. To be contradictory though, it seemed a bit flabby as well. The core cast performed well enough but it needed more, something.

It speaks volumes that they had to create a prehistoric drummer (I'm not even going to touch on the accuracy of that) and use a mythical (usually male) flautist to get non male, non european band members. Ugh, and Mozart again, why not go for Clara Schumann? And while I'm on here why why not go and get a jazz musician who couldn't have played with Jimi? Robert Johnson? Or would that have been too many guitars?

It's just not as much fun as the others, it's far too aware of how 'important' Bill and Ted films are, too reverent.

Also, who is Kid Cudi?

Kid Cudi has sold 16 million records in the US and has won a grammy, according to wikipedia. He's also an actor.

I don't know his work, but I know he's somebody that kids would know. I guess they wanted somebody contemporary to round out the group, include at least one hip-hop voice, and appeal to kids who hadn't seen the original (or, at least, not when they came out).

You can't make everyone happy. They were trying to maximize diversity of era, sound and ethnicity while not having to spend much time explaining who that person was to the audience.

As for Johnson, too many guitars, I think, and he wouldn't really fit with the Arcade Fire-style cacophony they were going for. Besides, Hendrix is the greatest. And it worked that he was sort of contemporary with Louis Armstrong because at least he'd heard of him and would know it was the real Armstrong when he played. If they'd picked Scott Joplin, for example, he wouldn't be familiar with his sound. And, of course, Louis Armstrong's name and likeness is much better known to contemporary audiences than any other jazz musician, not only of his era, but probably ever. The film didn't really have to explain anything when they showed up in Preservation Hall in the 30s.

Clara Schumann is not well known to most of the audience. Every kid has at least heard of Mozart. They already used Beethoven in an earlier film, didn't they?

The mythical flautist they picked is not well known to the audience, but for those that have heard the story of Ling Lun, most will appreciate that they made her a woman, and everyone could understand the idea that they were going for somebody ancient and revered.

Is there a non-European, non-American, non-male that they could have chosen that would have worked better?

Picking a prehistoric drummer helped them further diversify the times represented in their band. It is a time-travel film, after all.

And it shows the "universality" and primacy of music, especially drums. I think that was really the main point, however "inaccurate" that might be.

Besides, Buddy Rich probably wouldn't have come along. He was kind of a grump, apparently.

[Guy Profumo]

Saw it last night.

Not as great as Bogus Journey, but enjoyable enough


But <spoiler>, twigged the "twist ending" right at the start.