In college, it was a regular rental we held Banzai parties, dressed as characters, turned it into our private video Rocky Horror. We caught it at midnight movie houses and relished in the warm presence of a movie made by people who shared our dark, twisted senses of humor. The aliens come off as resourceful-albeit-goofy pack rats, bumbling about and managing to stay just a few steps ahead of Buckaroo until the very end.įor many of us over 30, this film was something special. And the direction and approach is equally exciting: rather than annoy us with under-financed special effects that pretend to be Lucas Film quality, the director revels in his low budget, using conk shells as models for space ships and populating alien ship interiors with tubes, pipes, rods and duct tape. The script is clever, a veritable mosaic of silly twists and throwaway jokes so layered that it takes multiple viewings to keep up with it all (favorite line: "It's not my ******* planet, Monkey Boy!"). Whatever makes you happy, folks! If trashing on a film that was seminal in the annals of low-budget cinematic resourcefulness makes you feel special then I'm happy for you. I've read several comments by people under the age of 30 who trash on this film, call it crap, and characterize us fans as vapid, Thorazine-addled retards. Some day, in the not too distant future (probably a decade from now), Team Banzai will be up there among the ranks of A Clockwork Orange and Doctor Strangelove. That sentiment is only magnified now with it's 2002 release to DVD. :-) Read full reviewīuckaroo Banzai, in it's original VHS format, was already a Cult Classic. and the DVD will be regifted to someone who may enjoy the same aspects I listed above. I could go my entire life without watching this movie again. The only value was seeing many people and many are no longer with us. Some are quintessential in cult classics like Highlander ( the original) Clancy Brown. Some are annoying that never go away like Jeff Goldblum. A pre-Back to the Future Christopher Llyod is just the start. BUT the only really value to the whole project was the familiar faces. The movie was horribly written and made no sense at all. Thankfully we can find used DVDs on this system! Sometimes it's the only way to get ahold where a rental would have been a far better idea. Last time I saw it must have been 1990 on a major movie cable network and had totally forgot the entire thing by the time I saw a preview online. There are a lot of really great movies that are no being produced on DVD or maybe older ones that never have been put on DVD. Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned buy a copy and be prepared to screen it at least two times, to get all the nuances and gags. Only recently I purchased it at eBay, and ha ve seen it two or three times since then. Years ago, when it was available on a pay-TV station in Los Angeles, I saw the movie about four or five times. One reviewer wrote of it "[Buckaroo Banzai[ is paradoxically decades ahead of its time and yet completely of its time it's profoundly a movie by, for, and of geeks and nerds at a time before geek/nerd culture was mainstreamed, and a movie whose pre-CG special effects and pre-Computer Age production design were an essential part of its good-natured enthusiasm." It played for over two years at weekend midnight screenings in Boston, and was sold out every show (principally because Harvard students loved it and saw it again and again). This movie is so brilliant and so funny that you'll have to see it at least twice to get all the gags. The hands-down greatest SciFi sendup of all time, and a terrific movie on its own merits!!
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