Radio Days (Woody Allen, 1987)
Radio Days is Woody Allen's nostalgic look back at the hay-day of radio. Narrated by Allen and presumably inspired by his real experiences and memories, the story follows his young self (played by Seth Green) in something of a coming-of-age fashion, with scenes usually at least tangentially related to radio. Throughout the movie various vignettes are included depicting anecdotes or legends relating to the radio business and its stars.
Being way too young for radio to have played any significant part in my life, my distance from the subject may have affected my enjoyment of it. While I liked the nostalgic 1930's setting, most of it didn't capture anything substantial for me. But there were exceptions, a few moments where it succeeded and succeeded really well.
It's a fine movie, but I think without sharing a similiar background from that era it's too personal of a thing for me to really appreciate.
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (W.D. Ricther, 1984)
Buckaroo Banzai.
Rocket car driver.
Neurosurgeon.
Rock Star.
Lady's man.
Yes, Buckaroo Banzai is surely a multi-talented guy, and we're only 15 minutes in! He's also a particle physicist, samurai (Wah?), and has his own comic book line. If you haven't guessed yet, this movie is ridiculous.
Gloriously ridiculous. I mean, check out this gettup.
Wait, is that...
Yes, it
is Jeff Goldblum!
The story is not surprisingly pretty ridiculous as well. Going into too much detail about it would be missing the point, so suffice it to say it involves inter-dimensional aliens and the fate of the world. And also John Lithgow as a batshit crazy mad scientist speaking in some undefinable accent that I think is supposed to be reminiscent of Russian.
The movie knows what it is and openly embraces how over the top and silly it is, it's full of cliches and cringe-inducing dialouge, but it never stops being fun.
And you've got Christopher Lloyd kidnapping some asian dude.
And Vincent Schiavelli and Dan Hedaya as undercover aliens.
...See where I'm going with this? So yeah, this may not be high art, but it's a darn fun time.
VerdictA movie like
Buckaroo Banzai is tough in matchups like this, because I really can't compare the two movies in any meaningful way. What I do know is I had significantly more fun watching one than the other.
Buckaroo Banzai rockets through the 8th dimension and into the second round.