Movie – Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

If you have never seen the film Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure then allow me to introduce you to Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan, two most excellent dudes who have a great future ahead of them – if they can only pass History.  What their future is, and how they try to achieve it, make up the fun that is this film.  It features an early, comedic role from Keanu Reeves, as well as a ton of catchphrases that entered everyday language, some of them still with us today.

Movie – The Butterfly Effect (2004)

The Butterfly Effect might be the number one example of how a studio can destroy a movie by taking control of it away from its creators.  Co-writers/co-directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber crafted a movie that scared the studio.  They forced them to completely change the entire tone and events of the ending.  The result was that the film went from “damn, they actually went there” to “wait a minute, that doesn’t resolve anything.”  The movie “underperformed” at the box office and didn’t get a lot of good reviews.  Thankfully, when it was released on DVD the original version of the film was finally available to be seen.  People couldn’t believe how much better it was over the theatrical version.  If you have not seen this film, avoid the theatrical version and watch the “directors’ cut”.  That is the version I am recommending.

Movie – Donnie Darko (2001)

Much has been written about the “immediate impact” and “instant cult status” of the movie Donnie Darko.  The funny thing is, most of it is wrong.  The film, with its 4.5 million dollar budget, made only 500,000 dollars on its initial five months in theaters during the winter of 2001/2002.  A subsequent re-release in the summer of 2004, after its cult status had started to grow, still grossed only another 750,000 dollars.  It’s only after a decade of constant talk about it, a “director’s cut”, and the career growths of several of the young stars in it, that the film has truly achieved the impact that it has today.

Movie – Timecrimes (2007)

Of the four Time Travel on a Budget movies I’ve recommended so far, Timecrimes is the one that spent the most money – all of 2.6 million dollars.  It’s also the one that heads into the darkest territory so far, although an upcoming recommendation will match it.  Unlike Safety Not Guaranteed, Primer, and 11 Minutes Ago, Timecrimes is not a movie shown from the perspective of the people who are inventing time travel devices.  Instead, it focuses on a regular man who accidentally gets caught up in a time loop that he may never find his way out of, at least not as the same man he was before he started.  It would be fair to say that this movie has some gothic horror elements to it.

Movie – 11 Minutes Ago (2007)

So you’re a time traveler.  You go back in time about 50 years to 2007 in order to get air samples from a period when Earth’s air was a lot cleaner, in the hopes that you can use this to deal with the planet’s current problem.  When you take your very first trip back you are immediately confronted with lights, a camera, and a man asking you about your trip back in time.  Needless to say, you would be disoriented and seriously stunned by this.  What the heck is going on here?

Movie – Primer (2004)

There was quite a bit of hype about the movie Primer after it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2004.  I can’t remember exactly when I saw it, but it was within a year or two of this.  With the hype still fresh in my mind (most of it about how this was a fresh and original time travel movie), I ended up being a little let down by the film.  That was mostly because my expectations were too high, though.  It is still a decent movie and one that is good enough to recommend to anyone who wants to see a serious movie on the ethics of time travel.

Movie – Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

I had heard good things about Safety Not Guaranteed.  It had come out of the Sundance Film Festival having won the screenwriting prize and having been nominated for the Grand Jury prize.  It had good buzz about it, but when it opened this summer it got lost amidst all the mega budget movies that were also getting released.  That is too bad because people missed out on a terrific movie.  Now that it has been released on DVD those who missed out will get a second chance to see a movie that I have no qualms about predicting will make my Top 10 Movies of 2012 list.

Time Travel on a Budget

Marty McFly:  “Are you telling me you built a time machine?  Out of a Delorean?

Doc Brown:  “The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style?”

                                                      – Back to the Future

When people think of time travel movies they usually picture big budget ones like Back to the Future, Star Trek IV, Terminator 2, and other similar films.  These are the ones that have big special effects budgets and big names either in front of or behind the camera.  In fact, the concept of a low-budget time travel movie seems quite foreign to many people.  This hasn’t kept some people from making them, though.

Because of the limited budgets of the filmmakers and/or the characters in the films, these movies often do not focus on the “gee whiz” technology, or show scenes where the actual time travel takes place.  Instead they focus on the people involved and the consequences of their actions.  The first one I am going to review – Safety Not Guaranteed – even proceeds with the fact that time travel probably will not occur, instead focusing on a man who believes he can time travel and a few people who come to know him.

In addition to that film, I will also be recommending a film involving storage units, a film shot at a wedding reception, a Spanish film that deals with a serious time paradox, a film with a plane crash, a film about childhood trauma, and a film with two most excellent dudes.

As I post the reviews, I will come back and add links here for those posts:

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Primer (2004)
11 Minutes Ago (2007)
Timecrimes (2007)
Donnie Darko (2001)
The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

On to the reviews…