In this week’s episode of Catching Up On Cinema’s ‘Preciating Peter Weller event month, Kyle and Trevor take a look at W.D. Richter’s 80’s cult classic(?), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)!
Starring Peter Weller as the titular Banzai, and featuring a charming of notables such as Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Clancy Brown, John Lithgow, and Christopher Lloyd, the movie is an obscure cult film that in some ways bears a closer resemblance to an absurdist art project.
Presented in a format similar to Star Wars Episode IV, or perhaps more appropriately, Leonard Part 6, Buckaroo Banzai comes at you hard and fast with references to previous adventures and concepts have not, nor ever will come to pass.
Possessed of an surplus of creativity and an deficit of energy, the film threatens to be wholly unapproachable at times, but is just barely saved by the charisma and relative gameness of it’s cast.