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Culture Dump: What We Know About Bill And Ted Face The Music So Far

2/17/2019

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This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the slacker teen comedy that proved smarts aren’t always integral for success - heart counts too. After all, it was the enduring friendship of Bill S. Preston Esq and Ted Theodore Logan (and their real-life counterparts Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) that helped keep the film close to fans’ hearts. Good thing too, as 1989’s critics weren’t exactly keen on Director Stephen Herek’s franchise starter - even accusing it of actively promoting stupidity. Thankfully audiences were kinder to the time-travelling alter-egos of writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. Cut to 2019 and rumours of a third instalment never seem far from movie gossip sites - but what exactly do we know about Bill and Ted Face The Music? Let’s take a look...

Wait For It...

When we last saw Bill and Ted at the end of 1990’s Bogus Journey, they’d returned from a trip to a future where they’d finally fulfilled their fate of writing the music that heals humanity. However when we find them in Bill and Ted Face The Music - they’re still waiting for that particular beat to drop. Having transformed from dudes to dads, the duo must come face-to-face with the fact that they’re yet to achieve their world-saving destiny and embark on a jaunt through time to figure out why that is. It’s a theme that runs deep for Bill and Ted’s real-life alter-egos Matheson and Solomon who have lived with these characters (and their various ups and downs) since their early 20s - but it’s also a quest that’s universally relatable: What teenager didn’t think they’d grow up to conquer the world only to have reality get in the way?

Rufus Redux

One of the biggest question marks hanging over Bill and Ted 3 is how Matheson, Solomon and Face The Music Director Dean Parisot plan to tackle the absence of George Carlin’s Rufus. As their cool-as-ice guide through time, Carlin - who passed away back in 2008 - swapped his whip-smart stand-up persona for that of a laid back time lord, providing Bill and Ted with their time travelling phone booth and guiding them through ‘89’s Excellent Adventure and Peter Hewitt’s 1990 sequel Bogus Journey. Thankfully Rufus fans can rest easy in the knowledge that Carlin’s presence will very much be felt throughout Bill and Ted Face The Music in the form of Rufus’s daughter who makes an emergency visit to the San Dimas chosen ones to hit home the chaos that awaits if they don’t seal their future fates.

Back To Hell

While George Carlin may be absent in Face The Music, there is another familiar face from the franchise’s previous instalments that promises to make a return alongside Reeves and Winter. William Sadler’s portrayal of Death - complete with hood and scythe - became a fast fan-favourite following his appearance in Bogus Journey’s board-game sequences in Hell and while little is known about exactly how he’ll factor into the duo’s latest adventure, both of the film’s co-writers have let slip that he is due to make an appearance in part three. Could this mean Bill and Ted have to go back into key events from their past to help fix their future? Time will tell, Dude.

Time For An Upgrade

While Bill and Ted’s journey in Face the Music is very much an internal one, Matheson and Solomon have confirmed that it will once again involve sending the duo through the circuits of time. This means they’ll have to join Rufus’s daughter in their time-travelling phone booth if they want to survive their mid-life slump and write the music that fixes humanity's ills - and make no mistake - it will still be a phone booth, despite their lack of familiarity with modern audiences. That said, the brains behind the series have teased that this icon of a bygone time could have a few surprises hiding up its sleeve. Perhaps we should expect a few upgrades or alternate versions? It’s about time... 

Bill and Ted Face The Music is due to go into production this Spring. To read my retrospective piece on Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, head to the SFX page. 
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Culture Dump: Would You Watch A PIrated A Movie?

2/12/2019

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Simon Bland Freelance Entertainment Journalist
The run up the Academy Awards is always a hectic time for cinemas. As Oscar bait floods their screens movie fans flock to catch as many critically praised films as they possibly can before the big day arrives. It’s also peak season for another industry - one that arrives with none of the glitz and glamour of a movie premiere or after-show party - but one that hits its stride as awards chatter heats up. Movie piracy, from leaked awards screeners right down to shoddy filmed-in-the-cinema camera footage, very much still exist and is often just a quick Google search away. Its presence is nothing new. Piracy has been lurking in the background of cinema since the days of VHS - but with this new-found ease of access it’s worth wondering why there’s a ready audience for illegal pirated movies in the first place.

It feels like an odd juxtaposition. Despite the presentation of digital media taking leaps and bounds towards high definition and specifically tailored viewing experiences, there still seems to be viewers willing to watch a brand new release interrupted mid-way through by a punter with a weak bladder. Even more shocking is the fact that footage like this still exists and manages to make it online in the first place. Call us old fashioned but the idea of rocking up to a multiplex with a camcorder in-hand, hitting record and lasting the full runtime without getting caught feels not only dated but surely painfully obvious to detect. Reassuringly however, only around 24% of people admit to being open to pirating a movie while it’s still in the cinemas - but maybe the comfort afforded by home-viewing platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime will soon skew that data. 

Alfonso Cuarón’s recent awards-hog Roma could be an interesting case-in-point. As a monotone foreign language drama, Cuarón’s personal tale of his Mexican upbringing is far from the most accessible movie for mainstream audiences more accustomed to superheroes and wars in the stars. However despite these populist hurdles Roma has quickly developed a word-of-mouth audience to match the critical praise its received. Could its Netflix accessibility have encouraged unlikely, on-the-fence viewers to take a punt on it when whipping out their wallets may have seemed too hard a bargain? With this in mind, maybe fans’ urge to watch even the dodgiest quality pirate movie comes from an odd place of support. When times are tough, disposable income is scarce and your enjoyment of an awards contender is far-from guaranteed - are viewers turning to piracy as a way to widen their cinematic tastes without the financial risk? 

It’s a scenario that’s far from ideal - and one that’s unlikely to end anytime soon. As long as there are new releases, there will likely be illegal streamed copies of them available online. The reason why people pirate movies may remain unclear but the ultimate resolution of this enduring dilemma seems to lie more with people’s morals than their wallets. Fans wanting to support cinema and the colourful voices its showcases will undoubtedly pay for the pleasure of being whisked away to a new on-screen world. There may even be a glimmer of hope on the flip side of the coin, too. While those pirating their movies lose out on the experience of seeing a zeitgeisty new release with a group of like-minded individuals, if their sofa-stint with a screener strikes a chord, it could transform them into a lifelong (and with any luck, paying) fan of left-field cinema. Here's hoping. 

Would you consider watching a pirated movie? Let me know in the comments below!
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    Author: Simon Bland
    t: @SiTweetsToo

    Simon is a freelance entertainment journalist and this is his blog.

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