What If Buckaroo Bunzai Could Travel Through Matter?

I like older movies.  I also like new ones as well.  But one in particular came to mind this past week.  While talking to the manager at our local cinema cinaplex (I'm not even sure if cinaplex is an actual noun or more of a pronoun but basically I'm talking about the movie theater located at the south end of our town.  We have one on the north end too but sometimes you just have to pick a side because war can be hell.) and an old movie came to mind.  The Adventures of Buckaroo Bunzai Across the Eighth Dimension.  Now many of you will not even know this movie. The way I described it to the manager (I think his initials are RMC because that's what's on his name tag but that may just be a coincidence because the theater goes by the same initials.) was this is a movie you either love or have never seen.  Some still gather in small, dimly lit rooms to discuss the overall themes and meaning of the movie.  It had a great cast.

John Lithgow, Peter Weller, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd (with two L's), Clancy Brown, Vincent Shiavella, and Yakov Smirnoff (I always think Vodka when I see his name) and the guy who plays Mike on Breaking Bad - Jonathan Banks.  There were many more like Jamie Lee Curtis who played Buckaroo's mother but those scenes were deleted and she was left on the cutting room floor (Poor Jamie).  The movie came out in 1984 and I actually didn't see it on the big screen but a friend rented it (Good old VHS days) and I remember he purposely did not rewind because he wasn't a kind man but he was a fan of Peter Weller.  Which was strange because Peter Weller's fan base remained small until Robo Cop came out in 1987.  In fact, after watching The Adventures of Buckaroo Bunzai, which I just kinda remembered a little bit for a couple decades, Robocop came out and I remember thinking I recognized Peter Weller from somewhere but I couldn't remember Buckaroo Bunzai. It would not be for another twenty years when I would run across the movie in the $1 section at our local video rental store (I believe it was still on VHS but this time I made sure to rewind it because deep down inside I am kind so I did rewind) and I brought it home and relived some memories while I watched it with my children.  I don't think they really got the appeal of the movie but I kind of fell in love with the old movie.  The first time I watched it was in Vegas at a friend of a friend's house.  I just thought it was kind of a weird movie.  But after twenty years and watching it for a second time, I actually saw how neat it was.

And to see actors like Jeff Goldlum from The Fly and Jurassic Park, and other actors I had seen in so many other movies, the synapses were making millions of connections in my brain firing off messages intertwined with long lost memories of movies and a long lost weekend in Vegas. I guess youth is so fleeting and valuable that we find importance in visual memories such as a movie or the recorded audio signals from music and we fall in love with things that can be so ordinary.  Or were ordinary.  But that's the thing about The Adventures Of Buckaroo Bunzai Across The Eighth Dimension - it was no ordinary movie.  It has a cult following of people even after 29 years.  Myself, I have never been to a Buckaroo Bunzai conference but I can imagine they would be a lot of fun.  There are still panels that discuss the different characters and actually interview actors such as Weller and Lithgow at this present time.  The impact of Buckaroo Bunzai is similar to the testing which took place on Bikini Island back in the late 50's by the United states.  If you're curious about that just google it.  But the impact of the testing was so concentrated and powerful that the residents still have not moved back to Bikini Island.  Which is actually so beautiful that the French inventor of the swimwear used the island's name to name his own new line of clothing.  The bikini was named after an island in the Pacific.  Now the original question I asked in the title can only be answered by watching the movie.  So give it a try.  Rent it on Amazon.  Buy a copy of it off of Ebay.  Do whatever it takes but your life will never be the same.  Mine never was...  Just to hear John Lithgow ask that classic line playing the insane Dr. Lazario - "What are you laughing at monkey boy?"  That alone is worth the price of rental.  My name is Rueuhy and I approve this blog.