Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Another Keannu Reeves vehicle here (wonder what it is with him and ‘dude’ films?), this was his mainstream breakthrough film, alongside Alex Winter (who was also a vampire in The Lost Boys) and the late, fantastic dude George Carlin.
A heart-warming tale of drop-out dudes somehow becoming the founders of a full-on Dude philosophy that saves the world, by way of a school project concerning famous dudes throughout history and judicious use of a time-machine disguised as a phone box. A most excellent dude movie and one that is a firm favorite with most 80’s kids!
Grosse Point Blank
With a beautiful cameo from Dan Ackroyd, and deceptively low-key turns from both the principals (John Cusack and Minnie Driver) this tale of a small-town dude returning home for his ten-year high school reunion is another well-trod path of cinema.
The only tiny deviation from the standard soul-searching-dude-attempting-to-win-back-his-old-flame/soulmate trope here is that John Cusack’s character is a freelance assassin, on a job (I mean, why not kill two birds with one stone?) with a bunch of other assassins trying to kill him and Woodrow (Dan Ackroyd), yet another assassin is so utterly wacko, so gloriously balls out, gibberingly unhinged that he totally steals the show.
