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Pee Wee's Big Adventure
Tim Burton makes an impressive feature length directorial debut with the now minor classic Pee Wee's Big Adventure, a splashy, big-budget rendering of a relatively simple story blown up to gigantic proportions with a silly but extremely likable hero at the center of it, who became so popular the actor pretty much created an entire career out of it.
This 1985 comic romp stars Paul Reubens as Pee Wee, a geeky man/child whose prize possession, his big red shiny bike, is stolen by his rich nemesis, Francis, but Francis fools Pee Wee into thinking he had nothing to do with it. After seeking help from police and friends, Pee Wee seeks help from a phony fortune teller, who tells Pee Wee that his bike is in the basement at the Alamo, so Pee Wee is off to Texas to get his bike back.
Reubens, the late Phil Hartman, and Michael Varhol collaborated on this very funny screenplay that actually starts out as almost a character study, a study of what is probably the closest thing I have seen to a live action rendering of a cartoon character, brought vividly to life onto a Disney-type canvas, spending an inordinate amount of time talking to inanimate objects and living in his own world, suddenly forced into the real world by the disappearance of his beloved bike.
Burton, who would go on to rack up an impressive resume including the 1989 Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood, goes to exhaustive lengths here to make sure he has mounted a story that provides action and laughs and shows no interest in logic or realism. If you're interested in a story that makes sense, you've got the wrong movie. This reviewer was especially entertained by Pee Wee's encounter with an escaped convict named Mickey, his close encounter with a lonely waitress named Simone, and, of course, his classic dance in a biker bar to "Tequila." And just when you think the chase through the Hollywood movie studio is enough, the 4th wall comes completely down and we learn that Pee Wee's story has the caught the eye of a movie producer (Tony Bill) who wants to turn it into a movie.
Reubens created one of cinema's most likable characters here. He became so popular he not only did two more movies, two television series, which earned him three Emmy nominations and a Broadway musical in 2011. Reubens terrific supporting cast includes Judd Omen as Mickey. You might remember Omen as one of the bank robbers who kidnaps Chevy Chase in Seems Like Old Time. Diane Salinger is fun as Simone as is Mark Holton as the obnoxious Francis. A few other familiar faces pop up along the way including Elizabeth Daily as Dottie, Marcia Lewis as the ghost of a cab driver, James Brolin as movie Pee Wee, Morgan Fairchild as movie Dottie, and the late Jan Hooks as a perky Alamo tour guide. Though it's Burton's imaginative mounting of this story and Reuben's creation of this one of a kind movie character that keep the viewer invested and entertained.
Tim Burton makes an impressive feature length directorial debut with the now minor classic Pee Wee's Big Adventure, a splashy, big-budget rendering of a relatively simple story blown up to gigantic proportions with a silly but extremely likable hero at the center of it, who became so popular the actor pretty much created an entire career out of it.
This 1985 comic romp stars Paul Reubens as Pee Wee, a geeky man/child whose prize possession, his big red shiny bike, is stolen by his rich nemesis, Francis, but Francis fools Pee Wee into thinking he had nothing to do with it. After seeking help from police and friends, Pee Wee seeks help from a phony fortune teller, who tells Pee Wee that his bike is in the basement at the Alamo, so Pee Wee is off to Texas to get his bike back.
Reubens, the late Phil Hartman, and Michael Varhol collaborated on this very funny screenplay that actually starts out as almost a character study, a study of what is probably the closest thing I have seen to a live action rendering of a cartoon character, brought vividly to life onto a Disney-type canvas, spending an inordinate amount of time talking to inanimate objects and living in his own world, suddenly forced into the real world by the disappearance of his beloved bike.
Burton, who would go on to rack up an impressive resume including the 1989 Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood, goes to exhaustive lengths here to make sure he has mounted a story that provides action and laughs and shows no interest in logic or realism. If you're interested in a story that makes sense, you've got the wrong movie. This reviewer was especially entertained by Pee Wee's encounter with an escaped convict named Mickey, his close encounter with a lonely waitress named Simone, and, of course, his classic dance in a biker bar to "Tequila." And just when you think the chase through the Hollywood movie studio is enough, the 4th wall comes completely down and we learn that Pee Wee's story has the caught the eye of a movie producer (Tony Bill) who wants to turn it into a movie.
Reubens created one of cinema's most likable characters here. He became so popular he not only did two more movies, two television series, which earned him three Emmy nominations and a Broadway musical in 2011. Reubens terrific supporting cast includes Judd Omen as Mickey. You might remember Omen as one of the bank robbers who kidnaps Chevy Chase in Seems Like Old Time. Diane Salinger is fun as Simone as is Mark Holton as the obnoxious Francis. A few other familiar faces pop up along the way including Elizabeth Daily as Dottie, Marcia Lewis as the ghost of a cab driver, James Brolin as movie Pee Wee, Morgan Fairchild as movie Dottie, and the late Jan Hooks as a perky Alamo tour guide. Though it's Burton's imaginative mounting of this story and Reuben's creation of this one of a kind movie character that keep the viewer invested and entertained.