Bill and Ted

I recently caught a showing of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey on cable. This movie isn't nearly as good as the first Bill & Ted installment, but it was a lot of fun watching it again and laughing at the old, lame jokes. They are lame as ever, and still crack me up. (Does that make my sense of humor lame?)

One of the things I like about these movies is how they explore a very silly sort of sci-fi film. In the Bill & Ted movies, there is an appreciation of the genre that underlies the silliness, I think. It seems to me that someone who doesn't understand how sci-fi films work probably couldn't make or appreciate the humor of Bill & Ted, even for as much as sci-fi comes in for a bit of mockery in the movies.

One aspect that is easily missed in the films is how well-rounded their targets for mockery are. While there seems to be a base in rock music and pop culture, the films also take us back to important historical figures (or in the case of the second, mythological figures), and expect the audience to know something about each of them. Without a well-rounded knowledge, the films aren't funny, really.

It's funny, when I look back, how even these sorts of cheesy, pseudo-sci-fi movies can capture so much. It reminds me why I like the genre so much.

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