Buckaroo Banzai (1984)

There are times movies can be a little too weird for their own good. 1984’s The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is one of those movies. Peter Weller is the title character who’s a rock star, scientist, surgeon, and just about anything else you can name. And, he’s got a whole cast of characters with him. You can’t quite stick it in one genre because it covers so many. It feels very much like a 1930s pulp but made in the mid-80s. John Lithgow is chewing all the scenery as the main alien villain. Listen, no one knew what to do with this movie. Fox and Columbia couldn’t figure out how to market it, and it was not even in the ballpark of being a hit. But then came home video, and like so many movies of the VCR era, everything changed. It became a huge cult hit, and people who gave it a chance ended up loving it. In 2026, a movie like this might have stood more of a chance at the box office, but that’s still debatable. When movie studios don’t know what they have, and can’t come up with a marketing plan, usually the movie is doomed. Buckaroo Banzai promises a sequel at the end, and of course it never happened. It’s a shame, because this universe seemed to have the potential to reinvent pulps for a new generation. It’s a movie that’s perfect example of 80s experimental filmmaking. It is not likely you will ever see it played on a big screen, since there’s still some rights issues lingering in the background. Which is too bad, it’s a movie that deserves to be seen on a 40-foot screen with some of its mind-bending effects. If you can track it down, watch it. Even if it’s just something that makes you say, “what did I just watch?” at the end.