Take Two is a new series from reporters and movie buffs Fritz Freudenberger and Isabelle Curtis to review entertainment options in the region. Our first installment is made possible through The Cinema Clubhouse, a new film club featuring free monthly screenings of curated films at the Harbor Theater. Their inaugural screening was the 1985 comedy cult-classic, "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," starring Paul Reubens and directed by Tim Burton.  

Fritz: Two of the many things I inherited from my father are an oddball sense of humor and a mind irreparably molded by watching movies like "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" at an impressionable age. Re-watching it as an adult, I’m happy to say it appeased my (debatably) grown-up standards. 

Within its fantasy world filled with larger-than-life characters, slapstick comedy, outlandish costumes, and sets jampacked with Easter eggs and tchotchkes, it’s more of a live-action cartoon than film. Made when CGI wasn't an option, the movie is packed with captivating practical effects, stop motion, and cartoons that ooze with handcrafted charm and artistic vision.

Driven by Pee-wee’s obsession to find his lost bicycle, the plot is fairly straightforward. Pee-wee himself, less so. With earnest self-assurance, at times he embodies childlike playfulness but can be surprisingly selfish, and sometimes cruel. However, the world around him, including a colorful cast of friends both old and new, consistently adores him. So much so that the audience has no choice but to laugh and join in.

If you’re looking for an experience that gives you little choice but to suspend disbelief and hop on an outlandish merry-go-ride operated by a delightfully absurd carnival worker, this one’s for you.  

4/5 red bowties 

Is: Full disclosure, I have never consumed a piece of Pee-wee Herman media (The Pee-wee Verse?) before watching this film, but I confidently say that it still holds up in 2025. No nostalgia glasses required. The world of Pee-wee exists in a heightened reality straight out of a Looney Tunes cartoon, where eyes shine in the dark like flashlights, two-toothed hobos ride the rails, and convicts watch drive-in movies from the back of prison buses.   

Even threats of violence fail to hold any real weight, as Pee-wee is chased around by a jealous boyfriend armed with a giant dinosaur bone at one point, and I imagined that, if struck, he would simply flatten and spring back unharmed like Bugs Bunny.   

Shout-outs must also go to Danny Elfman’s score for doing a lot of heavy lifting to curate this zany atmosphere (plus layering it with musical Easter eggs that were simultaneously delightful and vindicating. I knew I recognized that leitmotif from somewhere!).  

That is all to say that “Pee-wee's Big Adventure” is a laugh-out-loud, absurdist romp that uses its simple story to leave audiences with an important philosophical question: “I know you are, but what am I?” 

 4/5 red bowties