SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our FOUR TWENTY FIESTA Series, Thursday, April 20, 2023
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate.
7:30pm BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1989, dir. Stephen Herek, Park Circus, USA, 90mns, Digital)
9:30pm BILL & TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY (1991, dir. Pete Hewitt, Park Circus, USA, 93mns, Digital)
It’s April 20th or “Fo’ twenty!” As surfers in my high school loved to shout (even when it wasn’t) and you know what that means.
That’s right. Time to show the first two Bill & Ted movies starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter.
When confronted with Four Twenty programming, we didn’t want to go the obvious Cheech and Chong, Pineapple Express route. Or even the classic The Big Lebowski or Dazed and Confused route (as much as we love those movies). We wanted to surprise.
And what better way than showing these two hilarious, genial, and surprisingly clever comedies that are, as Secret Movie Club Team Member Connor Lloyd Crews says, “four twenty adjacent”.
That’s right. Both these movies were made specifically for the junior high and high school audience and so couldn’t be as loud and proud about their four twenty bonafides as an R rated movie. But it’s there. Because there’s no doubting that Bill and Ted are total stoners.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure follows the best friends from San Dimas as they use a time machine provided them by George Carlin from the future to actually bring historical figures to their high school to pass their history class. Because you see, in the future, Bill and Ted are destined to save the world with their rock and roll music. . .if they are able to graduate high school.
Playing as a kind of mix between Time Bandits and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (minus the heavy abortion plotline) Excellent Adventure may have one of the most laugh out loud funny lines of the 1980’s.
We follow it up with the even better Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. If you remember, Bill and Ted were going to unite the world with the music of their rock band Wyld Stallions but a gym teacher terrorist in the future steals the phone booth time machine to go back in time and prevent Bill and Ted from achieving this success.
The terrorist creates cyborg Bill and Ted’s and sends Bill and Ted to hell. In hell Bill and Ted must play games with Death itself (played by a wonderful William Sadler) to try and escape and foil the plot.
A totally bonkers movie that swings for the fences, Bogus Journey has the gozangas to take Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal as partial inspiration. And the sequence dealing with Bill and Ted in hell (in fact the working title of the movie was Bill and Ted Go To Hell) is one of the most imaginative ever put to film.
So line up, spark up, sit back, and be excellent to each other. This is a Fo’ Twenty for the ages.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
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HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.