Pee-Wee's Big Holiday (2016)

[Edgy MD]

Paul Rubens, approaching retirement age, somehow brings back his career-defining manchild character back for another feature 30 years after his big-screen debut.

Produced by and exclusively found at Netflix.

[Frayed Knot]

DSI,AGSI (didn't see it, ain't gonna see it)


I'm sure someone will telling that I'm missing something, but I've never seen a minute of anything PWH has ever done on film or on TV.
Mainly it's just never occurred to me that it would be anything I'd find remotely appealing.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm not interested either. I've only seen Pee Wee's schtick when he was a guest with David Letterman many years ago. I've seen Paul Rubens in a few things playing other characters, like 30 Rock and Gotham, but that's about it.

[Edgy MD]

Gosh, you Superior Sammys might want to get some tee shirts made.

I found it surprisingly OK. Tolerable. Is that a rating?

It's like, a clearly inferior remake of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. I mean, very similar plot and themes and stuff, only, you know, with a LOT more gay subtext.

It's not particularly canonical with PWBA (or it's little-loved sequel Big-Top Pee-Wee), but it again features the hero living the dream of an adult child, prancing about a dream house operating by Goldberg machines, fending off the advances of his would-be sweetheart, surrounded by a town that's perfectly trapped in his mid-century ascetic. Forces conspire to send him out on the road, and the characters he encounters seem to pop right out of mid-century genre pulp novels.

Just like with the new Star Wars, right now you're thinking, "Well I've already seen that. Can't anybody think of anything new?"

I'm right there with you. B'LIEVE me. But what redeems it, to the extent that it is redeemed or redeemable, is low expectations (see above); a handful of new gags from a creative act that's had a few decades to come up with a nu idea or two; and... I guess the joy of just seeing this old, disgraced guy having the gall to go out there and give it a whirl.

John Lee ain't Tim Burton. Paul Rust ain't Phil Hartman. And Mark Mothersbaugh ain't Danny Elfman, as much as I'd totally prefer to see Devo over Oingo-Boingo. It's an off-brand, knockoff candy bar, but maybe you need a sugar rush one of these nights. And at least the nut at the center is authentic.