Underrated by other critics because they haven’t had as many bicycles stolen as I have, Tim Burton’s 1985 road-trip movie Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure brought Paul Reubens’ cable-TV man-boy character to the big screen in all his adenoidal glory. Resolutely pre-sexual, Pee-Wee lusts only after his tasseled one-speed cruiser, pursuing his bike across the Southwest. The whole thing is a kind of goof on De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief, but it’s more surrealist than neorealist—Burton makes America just as weird and plastic as his hero’s underdeveloped yet overgrown imagination. Pee-Wee’s cartoonish quest takes place in an oddly pliable world where his single-minded hunt begins to look like high principle. Call for showtimes. (PG) BRIAN MILLER

Jan. 2-10, 2012