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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
1989 | Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure is an absolute triumph of feel good comedy and an all out classic of late 80s cinema.

Between it's infectiously likable leads (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) and absolutely ridiculous travelling-through-history plot, Excellent Adventure is one of those films that can easily be enjoyed by an audience of all age groups. It's certainly of it's time when it comes to its soundtrack and avalanche of pop culture references, but over 30 years later this proves to be one of its many charms. (Apart from the unfortunate use of a homophobic slur that wouldn't fly by today's standards)

All in all, Excellent Adventure is a wonderful whole heap of fun that's become one of my ultimate comfort films. Most bodacious indeed.
  
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Jon Savage recommended Hairspray (1988) in Movies (curated)

 
Hairspray (1988)
Hairspray (1988)
1988 | Classics, Comedy
7.9 (14 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Again, it's all about the outsider and making the ugly beautiful, which John Waters is very well placed to deal with. It's also about a very particular place, which is Baltimore, and about a particular pop culture moment: the early sixties, just before The Beatles hit, which is a forgotten time and much more interesting than everybody thinks. People often go with that Nik Cohn line that there's nothing interesting before The Beatles, which is absolute bullshit: I love all those songs like 'The Bug' and 'The Madison'. It's got Debbie Harry in it and it's got Divine of course, who's as wonderful as ever. What's not to like? It has a lot of charm and is fascinating on a number of levels."

Source
  
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Awix (3310 KP) rated Godzilla (1998) in Movies

Mar 24, 2018  
Godzilla (1998)
Godzilla (1998)
1998 | Sci-Fi
Much-reviled and frequently-mocked (especially in subsequent Toho films) American Godzilla is actually not bad as a mega-budget reinvention of the classic American monster B-movie (which the original Japanese Godzilla was inspired by), it's just very disappointing as an actual Godzilla movie. The French irradiate the Pacific, causing humble iguana to grow to ginormous proportions, experience curious gender issues, and then devastate Manhattan.


Some good effects sequences, particularly the two big battles between 'Godzilla' and the US armed forces, and the leads work hard to be likeable, but on the whole the film seems much more interested in American pop culture (there's a pastiche of Jurassic Park, jokes about Elvis, some really unsubtle digs at film critics who didn't like Independence Day) than in the Japanese pop icon it's supposed to be about - the monster is lacking in grandeur and majesty, doesn't have Godzilla's special abilities, and is basically just a big lizard you can kill with conventional weapons. (No wonder the beast is just called 'Zilla' in its subsequent appearances.) Not awful on its own terms, but then it was never going to be judged on those.
  
Ready Player One
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.9 (161 Ratings)
Book Rating
Pop culture (2 more)
Nostalgia drips from the page
Future true story
Modern retro
Coming to this book from the movie was a mistake but not a bigger one than reading this then watching the movie.

In a strangely possible future that sees the real world being second to virtual world of the Oasis, Wade Watts finds himself orphaned and obsessed with the 80s and all levels of geek and pop trivia. This obsession grows as he along with millions of others are undertaking a quest to control the virtual world and basically be the king of both worlds. Many movies, computer games, songs and even breakfast cereals are dissected in great detail and this attention to detail makes the book for me and is where it had me hooked. If you love nostalgia then this book will be a dream of not then it could be too much.

The story is packed with twists and turns with the obligatory love interest make this book fun, interesting and gripping in equal measure.

Book then movie, I need to learn to remember that one of these days