Word: banzai
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Director John Carpenter (Halloween, Starman) propels things faster, and way smoother, than a speeding '40s serial. But Co-Screenwriter W.D. Richter, who directed the definitive smarty-pants action picture, Buckaroo Banzai, is the evil genius behind Little China. He has everybody talking as if time-warped in some poverty-row thriller. "My destiny rests in your capable hands," the engaging Dun tells Russell, who is trying to be Harrison Ford trying to be John Wayne trying to be the Surly American. Everything else in the film is at the same three removes from reality. Little China offers dollops of entertainment...
Adventures of Buckeroo Banzai...
Home video has also been a boon for some small films that did well with critics but badly at the box office. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, a sci- fi comedy that got sympathetic reviews but few theater customers, has gone platinum on cassette (100,000 units sold). Cross Creek, a well-reviewed drama about Novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, surpassed its theatrical revenues with $1.5 million in home-video sales. A few films, like Crimes of Passion, have been re-edited for home video to restore racy or violent footage cut for the theatrical release. Some VCR owners actually prefer...
FANS OF CULT MOVIES will find much that has been borrowed, including the most famous line from Buckaroo Banzai. Indeed, though the Mad Max films have been elevated to popular status, Mad Max III has retained much of what makes some cult films, "cult classics." The bizarre side of life and death are captured better in the wonderfully absurd characters of this film--e.g. the hunchbacked gameshow host-executioner--than they could possibly be in a "serious" film. In other words, Mad Max films, though violent and bizarre...
...film's end the producers promise another episode: Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League. Is it possible that this wild bronc ride of a movie can be popular enough to spawn a sequel? Watch the grosses, and the skies. -By Richard Corliss