Yes, I rented “Bedtime for Bonzo” — when I was a little kid and it would be time to go to bed, my parents would often say that “it’s bedtime for Bonzo,” and for the longest time I thought “Bonzo” was the name of some clown. It sounds like it should, doesn’t it?
I don’t remember how many years later it was when I found out that Bonzo was actually the name of the chimpanzee and character in the film. But, the nice thing about Netflix is that if you get an urge to see some movie or another, chances are pretty good that they have it; I’ve rarely been disappointed with their selection.
I’m kind of surprised that on IMDB.com, “Bedtime for Bonzo” has only 5.1 stars out of a possible 10. Even “The Perfect Score” (a previous Netflix rental) had 5.3 stars on IMDB, so you’d expect both of these films to be in the same tier of overall movie quality. Still, I think that “Bonzo” is a much better film than “The Perfect Score”. Yes, even though “The Perfect Score” had Scarlett Johansson in it, I still thought it was a pretty awful film! Now that’s saying something!
So, sure, “Bedtime for Bonzo” is a jokey film that seems to have dubbed in man-made chimpanzee-esque noises (often poorly done), but it’s funny, and there’s quite a few lines from the film that brought out the chuckles. It’s also the first Ronald Reagan film I’ve seen, so it was also pretty amusing to see him pre-PotUS.
I had recently rented the movie “WALL-E”, and thought it was a very very good movie. IMDB made mention of some of the odds and ends that could be found around the city and in WALL-E’s “home”, but I wondered a bit what else could be seen that wasn’t mentioned in the movie’s trivia page. I didn’t really think that much about it, at least not until I was skimming through some scenes of the movie and something caught my eye…
See it? It’s a bottle of National Bohemian beer. I swear it is! Look, I’ll even point it out to you…
…and here it is again in a bit better focus when the focal length is adjusting from the iPod in the background to WALL-E in the foreground:
Even the bottles next to it are beer bottles, so it just HAS to be a bottle of National Bohemian! Too bad the camera wasn’t pointed over a little more to the right so we could actually see for ourselves. Bah.
I mean, really, look at that great example photo (taken by Jack Lyons) and tell me that it’s not a National Bohemian bottle in the scene. Brown bottle, white label with gold trim, and rounded-off red portion of label with light-colored lettering? Has to be a “natty boh”.
…actually, I lied. It’s not a National Bohemian bottle. It’s a B&L Bohemian beer bottle, if you want to get really technical about the movie plot. Still doesn’t change what I meant, though. I bet there was someone in the crew (yes, I actually did try checking everyone in the IMDB entry… and then I thought I’d try searching Google for people involved with the movie and Maryland… which makes me wonder if it’s someone who went to MICA?), but then I figured it was late and I should get to sleep.
At least, if it’s not a National Bohemian beer bottle, then what beer is it?
December 16, 2008 · No Comments 
