The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension

Buckaroo Bonzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers

Saturday night we had movie night at Caryn and Matt's. The film of the evening was one of my favorite 80's cult movies, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension, starring Peter Weller in the title role. An ensemble cast of men make up Buckaroo Bonzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers, with one exception, Buckaroo's love interest, Penny Priddy (Ellen Barkin). This movie is great, if you have never seen it, you definitely should.

Buckaroo is born to an American mother and a Japanese father and he grows up to become a neurosurgeon, a particle physicist and a rock star - in other words the coolest guy on the planet. The Hong Kong Cavaliers are comprised of, Reno Nevada (Pepe Serna), Raw Hide (Clancy Brown), Perfect Tommy (Lewis Smith), Pinky Carruthers (Billy Vera), Dr. Hikita (Robert Ito) and New Jersey (Jeff Goldblum). In addition to being musicians in Buckaroo's band, they are also scientists and act Buckaroo's bodyguards. The aliens (some good, some bad) are John Wohrfin/Dr. Emilio Lizzardo (John Lithgow), John Bigboote (Christopher Lloyd), John O'Connor (Vincent Schiavelli), John Emdall (Rosalind Cash), John Parker (Carl Lumbly), and John Gomez (Dan Hedaya). The alien names are one of many running jokes throughout the film. The good aliens are all Rastafarians (black lectroids) and the bad aliens are called "red lectroids." Buckaroo Bonzai even has Yakov Smirnoff as a national security advisor, which makes sense given the cold war theme throughout the film. The dialogue is funny because it is intentionally ridiculous, and the more you see Buckaroo Bonzai, the more you see in it.

Although it bombed when it was released in 1984, Buckaroo Bonzai's cult status is evident by the number of Buckaroo Bonzai fan sites on the net, and the almost Trekkie-like devotion to the smallest details of the film. IMDB has some cool trivia on the film, and the DVD has some deleted scenes in which Jamie Lee Curtis plays Buckaroo's mother in the prologue. Looking at this film through eyes that are 20 years older than the when I originally saw it, I have to say that the special effects still hold up pretty well. Matt commented that because the alien technology is "low-tech," it helps the film to stand the test of time. The only thing dated about Buckaroo Bonzai are the hair cuts and the clothes (remember DJ's Fashions for Men at the mall?), but those will be back in soon, so maybe they will remaster it for a theater re-release...probably not.