Bio-Dome's 15th Anniversary

In case you were worried about forgetting, I am here to remind you about a very special anniversary. No, it's not your parents anniversary and there is no holiday, yet, that is set to be observed. Just in case you forget to look at your calenders tomorrow, Jan. 12 is officially the 15th anniversary of Bio-Dome. So please, a moment of silence in honor of such a landmark film.

Might as well start throwing the confetti now.

The year was 1996, and times were simple. Bill Clinton was reelected as president, the Olympics were held in Atlanta, and the Macarena was causing mass suicides in the Mid-West. Hooded sweatshirts were still allowed to be tied around your waist and people paid money to see Pauly Shore. While that may of been true then, now Shore's career is as dead as Tiny Tim.

1932-1996

Shore was originally an MTV personality, having his own show on the channel. His first big movie break came in 1992 with Encino Man (Where the Stone Age meets the Rock Age!). The next five years was the Pauly Shore Era, with a movie starring the weasel coming out every year. With his limited personality, it's astonishing that Shore managed to milk five feature films out of the same act. But again, this was a time when rollerblading was still considered cool.

Bio-dome didn't just rest on Shore's straining charm though, Stephen Baldwin also starred in the movie. It's interesting, just the year before Baldwin was in The Usual Suspects, known as one of the coolest movies ever. How he could go from Usual Suspects to Bio-Dome is anybody's guess. Maybe he just really wanted the chance to work with Shore. Then again, Kevin Pollak was in Usual Suspects also, and all he does anymore is the same Shatner impression over and over.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on the movie. To be honest, I love watching Bio-Dome. It's a dumb excuse for a movie but it makes me laugh, and that's what it's here for. The misadventures of Bud and Doyle, the two shallow examples of what movie producers think of Generation X members, are amusing in their new Eden. Shore and Baldwin legitimately seem to be having a good time on screen. Also on screen is the underrated Joey Lauren Adams, Kylie Minogue (who should not be as ashamed of this movie as she claims to be) and William Atherton, who plays a pompous ass in every movie he's in.

Deja Vu?

It's stupid nd derivative of every other Shore movie made, but it's still an enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half. It's a movie you can ignore until the good parts come up. Tenacious D even stops by. How sweet is that. This movie was not only Tenacious D's break but also Jack Black's first comedy. On a side note: Jack Black has a really weird resume before the mid-90s. I knew he was in Airborne but apparently he was also in Demolition Man, Waterworld, Dead Man Walking and The NeverEnding Story III as Slip, the leader of the Nasties.

Badass.

Now back to Bio-Dome. While it didn't make much money and received a 5 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it was fun for what it intended to be: a dumb comedy. And in between gags, maybe it helped raise awareness of green living, long before it was a cool thing to do. The Biosphere 2 project, which the movie was based on, was a real life bio-dome in Arizona. However, Biosphere 2 became less about man living in a artificial ecosystem and more of an expensive, glass-enclosed commune.

In the 90s Biosphere 2 was mostly seen as a joke and would of been forgotten by now if it wasn't for that damn Pauly Shore movie. Bio-Dome shows that two men who spend their lives in front of 7-Eleven can live an eco-friendly life. Using this evidence, I assume the position that Bio-Dome predicted the green-living movement 15 years before the fad became mainstream. Not only did Bio-Dome help spread awareness of green living, but it also spread awareness of the Safety Dance, and it is because of this that we celebrate it's anniversary.

Pure magic. Still waiting on the special edition DVD.