Freaky Deaky

2012 crime comedy

Rating: 10/20

Plot: I don't really feel like writing a plot synopsis for this movie.

The parts don't come together for this one, a movie based on an Elmore Leonard story. Elmore Leonard's like a Hollywood goldmine. This has a semi-fun story, a bunch of semi-fun characters, and a semi-fun groovy 70's vibe. But it doesn't add up to anything that is much fun at all. When I found out that Crispin Glover and Andy Dick were playing siblings, I thought, "Uh oh. Brace yourself for the apocalypse, Shane." Glover, as expected, is the best thing about the movie. He's long-haired, sometimes plays Twister, and is perpetually stoned. The eccentric millionaire is a good role for Glover. Unfortunately, the movie's just as much about Billy Burke's character, a composite of every detective or hard-boiled copper from every other movie. Burke seems more tired than cool playing this walking cliché. Christian Slater plays a nutty bomb-maker and is exactly as good as you think he'd be. A funk soundtrack is cool, but a saxxy score is really dopey, and a few effects like page-turning transitions just seem like lazy attempts to make this whole thing cooler than it actually turned out. Chapter titles and a goofy made-up cereal won't trick anybody into thinking that "Charles Matthau" is a Tarantino pseudonym.

Seven Psychopaths

2012 black comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A screenwriter wrestling with a story is dragged into gangster shenanigans after a dog is stolen.

Wow. I watched this a long, long time ago. It's a mess of storytelling, but the characters are a lot of fun, and just like director Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, this feels really fresh. The thing just sparkles, mostly because the characters, though not especially well written, are unique and played perfectly by a who's who of cool, including a so-brief-you-might-miss-'em random appearance by Crispin Glover. Ferrell's the likable straight man stumbling around in the comedic darkness, and it's almost like his character is forced into the situation he's in by giggling gods. The ubiquitous Sam Rockwell shines, his comic timing and mannerisms nearly perfect. He's hilarious. Tom Waits gets to hold a rabbit and shoot people, and it looks like he's having a blast. Woody Harrelson's as funny as he gets, and he can get funny. Love his line "Peace is for queers, and now you're gonna die" in this. Harry Dean Stanton can steal a scene when he's doing nothing but standing around, and he does a great job of standing around in his limited scenes. And then there's the always-fascinating Christopher Walken who is maybe the best I've ever seen him. You just hang on his every word in this. And I love when he shoots somebody and makes the sound effect. Almost enough cool to make the entire movie explode. There's even a Townes Van Zandt song. The ultra-violence will turn off some, and the twisty plot that kind of changes tone about midway through might be a little too much for others. Rockwell's character says, "You're the one who thought psychopaths were so interesting. They get kind of tiresome after a while, don't you think?" at one point, and if somebody told me that they got tired of these psychopaths after a while, I could understand it. I thought the thing was a blast though and would definitely watch it again.

Charlie's Angels

2000 television show remake

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 10/20)

Plot: The titular crime fighters have to defeat a bad guy who has stolen something that has to do with computers.

My wife wanted to watch this because she's a big Crispin Glover fan. The special effects team behind this twist him all around, allow him to defy gravity, and give him a cane sword. It actually looked to me like Glover might have been having some fun as a mysterious and mute villain. It's the most action he's had on screen since that punch in Back to the Future. He's easily the best thing about this mess. Well, unless you're a fan of the numerous shots of the Angels' rear ends. With hair-sniffing quirks and severely-parted hair, this will likely be the closest Crispin gets to being a James Bond villain. This tongue-in-cheek action comedy is almost a little fun, but the stupidity overwhelms it. Gratuitously sexy, unashamedly corny, and cartoonishly action-packed, this definitely won't appeal to the thinking man part of you. The trio of Angels--Barrymore, Liu, Diaz--are fine, but that something about Drew Barrymore that really annoys me is on full display here, and Diaz's character is a little too stupid. But they all move well and are shapely enough. There are a few cameos (Jen--"Tom Green AND Joey?"), and then there's Bill Murray who always looks to me like he knows that he's wasting his time when I see him in things like this. Allegedly, a fight with Lucy Liu caused by Murray questioning her talent kept him out of the sequel. I was happy to hear a Flying Lizard's song in this, but that was early in the movie, way before I realized that the makers of this were actually going to use every single song that has ever existed on the soundtrack. Oh, and there's Sam Rockwell, not surprising at all since he's in every movie.

I'm going to eventually see the sequel to this, but I won't feel good about it. I hope there are more explosions in part two!

Rubin and Ed

1991 comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Titular Ed befriends the reclusive and bizarre Rubin in order to try to sell him something. Rubin's trying to get over the death of his cat, and Ed agrees to help him find a place to bury the pet. They wind up in the desert.

Ed Tuttle: "It's going to get weird now, isn't it?"

No, Ed. It starts weird. This comes off like a low-brow Waiting for Godot with absurdist arguments about whether there's hair on a head or if a cat is really dead. Or if Andy Warhol is really a great artist or if he "sucks a big one." Crispin Glover is deliriously odd in this movie that is quirky anyway. He's got a pair of striped pants, perhaps the same pair of pants that Richard Harris was singing about in "MacArthur Park," and these platform shoes that I'd imagine are hard to walk around the desert in. In fact, there were moments that I gasped audibly and feared for Crispin Glover's life a few times as he walked around in those things. It's the same garb he wore for his infamous Letterman appearance when he came on the show as his character but neglected to tell anybody associated with the show and just freaked everybody out. This is the perfect kind of role for Glover. He gets some outbursts, gets a chance to dance rhythmically with a squeaky mouse, and has a dream sequence that will be the best thing I see in a movie in my entire lifetime. That, my friends, is no hyperbole. It's got this in it:

I should have spoiler-alerted that, but you can still know about that one and be surprised by it, so it probably doesn't matter. That cat, by the way, can eat a whole watermelon. One of my old favorites, Howard Hesseman, does an admirable job of keeping up with Crispin. He gets a few angry outbursts himself. And they bounce lines off each other like this:

Rubin: "Why don't you keep your hands off other people's refrigerators?"
Ed: "Look, you don't eat those things, do you? A guy could get sick eating cats."
Rubin: "It's a pet!"

The whole thing cracked me up even though I could understand the argument that it runs out of gas about halfway through and has a few tangents--barking people, dancing bullies--that make it a little too goofy. Still, this is one of those undiscovered gems of a movie, and I'm throwing it in my list of favorite Crispin Glover films.

What Is It?

2005 movie

Rating: n/r (Mark: n/r)

Plot: A snail murderer wrestles with himself.

According to the credits, "This film has not advocated the assassination of Steven Spielberg in any way."

My brother and I made the trip to Bloomington to see Crispin Glover again. He showed us slideshow versions of eight of his novels, showed this first movie of the "It" trilogy, and then verbosely sort-of answered some questions. He had a beard this time.

I love this man. I really do. I have a feeling that people think I'm just joking around when I go on and on about him, but I think he's a borderline genius and one of the most interesting of Hollywood people. Having said that, his performance in this is about the worst part of the movie. He and his hair (or possibly wig) are distracting, and being distracting in a movie like this is an impressive feat. So what kind of movie is this? It's oddball avant-garde, cheap but fanciful and full of ideas, and a lot of people are going to find it downright offensive. It takes place, from what I can tell, on at least three levels of consciousness, years before Leo and his special effects team did it in Inception. The cast is made up mostly of unintelligible actors who have Down's Syndrome. There are references to Shirley Temple and Nazis, sometimes at the same time. There are cheap puppet shows. One character, the one who tells us that he's Michael Jackson, is in blackface. One scene right after Crispin Glover's character--either Dueling Demi-God Auteur or The Young Inner Psyche and Id since he plays both--floats in with what has to be one of the best special effects I've ever seen features a Cabbage Patch Kid, the playing of a song that uses the no-no n-word and is mostly about how black people smell, and a naked black woman in a monkey mask manually pleasuring Steven C. Stewart, the guy with severe Cerebral Palsy who wrote and starred in the second film of the "It" trilogy. Yep, that's the kind of movie this is, and if you're not in the right place mentally to see any of that, you should stay away. As I've mentioned many times on this blog, I like my avant-garde or experimental films best when they're a little goofy or at least humorous, and I did find parts of this really funny although I stifled laughter because I didn't know how the woman sitting next to me felt about the whole thing. I mean, I already came in with the guy who had smelly hair, so I already had one strike against me.

I can't pretend to know exactly what this is (pun, I guess, intended) or what Glover is wanting to say, but it's a movie that sticks with you and makes you think which is one of the director's intended goals. It's far from a perfect movie and, in fact, appears to have been filmed in Crispin Glover's backyard or basement, but at the same time, it is unique and almost pretty special. My brother and I are refusing to rate the thing because we're a couple sissies. I neglected to ask everybody else in the theater.

By the way, this is now easily at the top of my list of "Best Shirley Temple Movies" right ahead of The Littlest Rebel.

Simon Says

2006 crapfest

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Some college kids go camping in a remote location and are terrorized by two Crispin Glovers armed with pickaxes.

That's right, Crispin Glover fans. You get to double your pleasure with this one. And his dad, former Torgo award winner Bruce Glover, is in this, too. He stinks it up in a limited role, but not as much as his children, twins played by actual twins Chad and Chris Cunningham. It's got to be the worst acting by twins ever which isn't right because they're playing young versions of the greatest actor of all time. And speaking of Crispin, just imagine this for a moment: Crispin Glover playing a mentally-challenged character and his twin, both with accents that convince you they're both supposed to be mentally-challenged. Sometimes, especially when he's called a retard or crazy, he gets mad. His character stomps on a dog and then exclaims, "Puppy sleepy!" He delivers some of the worst puns you'll ever hear--"How about a hand sandwich?!"--and gets lines like "I like this game. Make you special present for my dream. Everybody want to play this game. Oh, I like this game" that make you wonder if it was all written that badly or if Glover was just butchering his lines and everybody went along with it because he was the only famous person in the movie. Oh, wait a second. On some covers of the dvd of this movie, it has Blake Lively's name right up there. This was before she was famous for whatever she's famous for, and she's really only in this movie for about 3 1/2 minutes. Still she's Blake Lively, somebody I've heard of! There are three other Livelys in this movie, too (possibly a Lively record) so one can only assume that somebody in the Lively family produced this.  But back to Crispin because he carries this kids-in-the-woods-with-a-killer cliche on his shoulders and turns it into a comic masterpiece. In fact, a conversation one of his characters has that ends with him yelling, "Sorry! I'm just a little tense here!" might be the most comical thing I've seen all year. Or maybe it's his prayer--"Oh, God. [Moaning] [More Moaning] Let's eat." Or his explanation of "the devil's cry." Or maybe the line "Now that's what I call a fatty!" which I can't believe hasn't become an Internet meme. Aside from Glover's decision to make this an uproarious comedy, this movie is a complete disaster. The dialogue's inane ("How a one-armed man counts his chain" might be the most pointless thing I've ever seen), the story and its characters have all the cliches that The Cabin in the Woods poked fun at, and the special effects are awful. There are flying pickaxes, an effect that not only looked completely stupid but didn't make any sense at all. That's almost topped a little later on by some fire effects. There's plenty of gruesome violence if that gets you off. And I was really confused with the twin thing. You ever watch a movie where there seems to be a twist, but you catch on so quickly that you wonder if there was even supposed to be a twist? That's kind of what happened there. I lost track of what was going on with the pair of twin Glovers, and at one point, I convinced myself there was a twist within a twist within another twist.

A well-timed Wilhelm scream makes me wonder if this whole thing is nothing but a joke. I wouldn't put it past William Dear, the director of Harry and the Hendersons.

River's Edge

1986 teen comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A high school doofus named Samson kills his girlfriend and leaves her naked body by the titular edge of a river. His buddy Layne tries to rally the troops to protect him while some of his friends, including Matt, decide to defy Layne, do the right thing, and go to the cops. A friendly neighborhood acid casualty married to a blow-up doll also gets involved.

Crispin Glover, Dennis Hopper, Keanu Reeves, and Donovan's daughter? There's no way this one could miss. For fans of the magic of Mr. Glover, this will please as he is at his most unglued, arriving too-wide-eyed in a VW bug and flashing all these weird finger motions. He's intensity incarnate with fingerless gloves and parachute pants and a stocking cap hiding hair that more than likely embarrasses him today. Hell, it almost embarrasses me, and I'm just an innocent bystander. Keanu Reeves gives his typical performance, and matched with Crispin's, some times in the same VW bug, it's almost too much for one man to handle. Then you've got Dennis Hopper playing one of his more deranged characters, and that's saying something. He gets a lovely scene where he slow-dances with a sex doll, compares his sister to a "God damn hippopotamus," and gets to say cool things like "I ate so much pussy in those days, my beard looked like a glazed doughnut." And I loved this bit of dialogue:

Samson: You're a psycho, aren't you?
Peck (Hopper): No, I'm normal. I know she's a doll. Isn't that right, Ellie?

I also loved a scene where Dennis Hopper's character is on his porch and looking around nervously. He enters the house and spots Samson standing with a cat. He tells Samson that he had him worried. Samson says, "Look what I found. We can get it stoned," and then fake-attacks the sex doll with it while Hopper freaks out. It's brilliant. Seriously, when anybody is capable of drawing attention to his or her character while Crispin Glover is doing what he does here is pretty amazing. Other chunks of nutty dialogue ("He went to buy an egg," all the "You eat me" echo fun, etc.) make it clear that this is a disturbingly black comedy more than anything else. And this scene at a phone booth:

Girl: Who do I call?
Other girl: The police, I guess.
Girl: I don't know the number.
Other girl: Call the operator and find out.
Girl: I don't know what to say.
Other girl: I'll dial and you talk. [Dials 0]

It's almost too funny for a storyline this dark, and although I can see how somebody would take that for criticism, I don't mean it that way. I laughed a few times and was enormously entertained by the performances. A bonus for kid-actor Yuzo Nishihara and his amazing nunchuck skills as the oddly-named Moko. This bit of random nunchucking puts me one step closer to completing a nunchuck trifecta for the summer. A and nd you also get Keanu humming the Mission Impossible theme as well as a Keanu Reeves sex scene with Donovan's daughter which I watched seventeen times while playing Donovan's "Atlantis" loudly enough for my neighbors to hear. This is one to watch with your pants off, friends.

Twister

1989 tornado movie that isn't that 1996 tornado movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Not much of one. A carbonated beverage tycoon lives with his son, daughter, grand-daughter, and housekeeper. He's dating a woman who hosts a religious program for children. His children want to find Mom. The daughter's ex-husband wants back into the fold. Somewhere mixed in all this is a tornado.

But no, this isn't that more famous and funnier tornado movie with Helen Hunt and that nondescript guy. I would have rather been watching a version of that with Crispin Glover though. That one's pretty straightforward. This one will have you asking, "What the hell am I watching here?" At times, I had to wonder if the actors and actresses were even on the same page in the script. Or even if there was a script. The movie's called Twister, but to be perfectly honest, it could have been called Ping Pong, Soda Pop, Bad Guitar Music, or Inflatable Dinosaur because those are just as important to the "plot" of this thing than the tornado. I'm positive that this is supposed to be a comedy, but I'm not sure there's an audience who's going to be in on the joke. You get all kinds of terrific dialogue, including this gem:

Dylan (ex-husband character played by Dylan McDermott, kissing Maureen in front of a giant television showing some cartoon): Can we go someplace more private?
Maureen: Let's go outside.
Dylan: No. I just came from there. There's a tornado out there.

What? And then all of a sudden, there's a horse in the house. None of the characters seem bugged by its presence, so why should I be? Of course, I put this on for the Crispin Glover, and he doesn't disappoint. Well, unless you're disappointed by baffling acting performances for characters that don't make much sense. He's weird here, even for Crispin Glover. He spends a lot of the movie in a red velvety suit, probably from his own personal collection, and gets a reverby musical number that sounds like it might be improvised. It reminded me a lot of outsider musician Jandek. You also get a scene where Glover's beaten up by a young Tim Robbins and another later scene where Crispin Glover fights a wall. He gets angry a few times, and it's always fun to watch an angry Crispin Glover. There are also cameos by guys named Donal Donnelly and Ralfe D. Reber as a twitchy doctor and a golfer respectively. I think the latter they must have just found on the golf course a few minutes before shooting the scene. It's his only film credit. Donnelly was in Godfather III and some other things though. But my favorite performance in this comes from none other than William S. Burroughs in a tiny role as Man in Barn. Seriously, I'm surprised I didn't have to clean myself up after find a movie scene where William S. Burroughs and Crispin Glover are in a barn together. Burroughs' target practice (of course) is interrupted and he answers a "Where's Jim?" question with the classic: "Jim got kicked in the head by a horse in February. He went around killing horses for a while. Then he ate the insides of a clock and died." That cameo alone was worth about five points for me.

Let me know if you want me to review the tornado movie with Helen Hunt and the nondescript guy because I'll do it for you!

Fast Sofa

2001 movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: Gary Busey's son cheats on his girlfriend with a porn actress and then embarks on a road trip to meet said porn actress at a shoot. Along the way, he picks up a bird-obsessed virgin named Jules, and they have some adventures.

So do you think I watched this for the Jennifer Tilly bondage scenes or the Crispin Glover? Either way, I would have left satisfied. If I had watched this for some kind of plot, I would have been completely disappointed though. There is a lot of Crispin though, red-headed and lazy-eyed. It's a juicy part for him, a neurotic character with all kinds of opportunities to be awkward and strange. His best moment is a freak-out in a bird shop, but he gets a great line with "I've never done that. . .thing. That thing with the dolphins and the ponies." And of course he's talking about masturbation. If you're a Crispin Glover fan, you probably need to watch this just to get the chance to watch him bowl. And if you're a fan of Jennifer Tilly's boobs, you need to see this because there's some screen time for them. You don't get to see Jennifer Tilly bowl though, so don't get overly excited. And if you're a fan of Jake Busey? Well, you must like terrible acting, and with his performance here, you are getting the best of the worst. Not only is he a bad actor, he doesn't really get anything to work with. Nothing he does seems natural anyway, but when he's telling his girlfriend that something is in the refrigerator and then adding that it's "in the kitchen"? Or when he's answering Adam Goldberg's gripe about some sunglasses ("They're too big and they say 'Disco' all over them.") with "Those glasses rule!"? Or when he's justifying cheating on his girlfriend by saying, "It's nothing to do with us. It was crucial and hilarious." I'm not making that up. Somebody wrote that for Jake Busey to say. "It's crucial and hilarious." Not only that, he uses the word "crucial" at least two other times, once in trying to convince Crispin Glover's character to drink water. Later, he defends pornography by saying, "It's hilarious. It's porno. That's what America's about--Freedom." Porn is apparently hilarious but not crucial. Despite a wide variety of flaws, I enjoyed watching Fast Sofa. I would have enjoyed it more without the artsy and pointless split screen stuff that dominated the second half of the movie although without it, I wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to see more than one Crispin Glover on my screen at the same time.

Willard

2003 Crispin Glover movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular character's a delightful young man who works as a clerk in the company that his father started. He lives with his feeble mother in a house that is too large for the two of them and deals with daily harassment from his father's former friend and Willard's boss. He's lonely and frustrated. Luckily, he befriends some gregarious rodents that live in his basement and gets to share all kinds of fun adventures with them.

This might have the best performance from a rat that I'll ever see. No, I'm not talking about Socrates, the white mouse that Willard favors. Big Ben is the one I'm talking about. There are some quietly disturbing scenes of Ben just lingering, brooding, scheming. In a way, Ben's a lot like this movie. It's also quietly disturbing and brooding. The creep sneaks up on you in this one although with Crispin Glover's performance, the beginning isn't exactly cheery. Glover's performance, I should mention, might be the best I'll ever see from a half-man/half-rat. It's the type of performance that makes every other actor in the movie look like he's just not trying hard enough. He's also got such good rapport with his rat co-stars. Dig the gleam in his mousy eyes and the way he commands, "Tear it," as he discovers that he has some influence over the rodents. And the way he tells Socrates, "I hate everyone but you. Let's go to bed." Oh, man. Only an actor of Glover's caliber with his general psyche can appropriately balance the horror and dark comedy in this role, and Glover, just as you'd expect he would, knocks it out of the park. I just love it when he gets really angry and screams like no man should ever scream in a scene at a funeral home. Other favorite Crispin Glover moments: "You think you're funny?" after one of the rats does something really terrible and his response to his mother's "What are you doing in the bathroom?" of "I'm going potty." Speaking of his mother, Jackie Burroughs is brilliantly weird in that role. And hilarious during a conversation where she changes Willard's name to Clark and later during a Three's Company-esque misunderstanding. You've definitely got to suspend your disbelief quite a bit in order to not let some of the plot details get in the way, but this is an often funny and even more often horrifying look at a damaged mind. Great opening credits, too, with a nifty movie theme, some cool animated stuff, and a preview of some of the movie's imagery. It ends even better with Crispin Glover's version of "Ben". For you purists out there, Michael Jackson's version can be heard earlier during a scene with a kitty that is both hilarious and disturbing.

My favorite little joke from the movie is the brand name of the nuts that Willard feeds the rats--Mumm Nuts!

Hot Tub Time Machine

2010 time travel comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A couple high school buddies take one of their nephews and another high school buddy who may or may not have attempted suicide to an old haunt to have a killer weekend. Things are depressing until they get the hot tub working. When an import energy drink is spilled on the hot tub controls, it sends the quartet back to the 1980s--the worst decade ever--and they are forced to relieve a vacation from the past in order to not screw up their futures.

Is it just me or does John Cusack look really really depressed. He's features are droopy, and he just looks like all the energy has been sapped from him. I'm worried about him. If working with Crispin Hellion Glover doesn't cheer you up, I don't see what will. Glover, by the way, is the only thing this movie has going for it. In fact, the only reason I finished the movie was because I knew Crispin Glover--America's finest actor--had more scenes. The first and sadly only laugh this movie got out of me was during a scene where Crispin Glover's character is unloading suitcases from a cart. The rest of the cast (other than the terminally-dejected Cusack) is enthusiastic enough, but they've got a script that was apparently written by teenage boys of below-average intelligence to work with. Chevy Chase takes away any bonus points Crispin Glover gets this movie. Craig Robinson from The Office is fine, and I suppose most fans of this movie will argue that Rob Corddry's idiocy is the funniest part of the movie. But the story is derivative (lots of Back to the Future parallels), the allusions are too contemporary to give this movie any legs, and it depends far too much on raunchiness. If any of it was funny at all, I could excuse all that. Unfortunately, this isn't even as funny as Somewhere in Time.

And seriously, somebody needs to help John Cusack before it's too late.

Alice in Wonderland

2010 movie

Rating: 13/20 (Jen: 16/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Alice, now a young woman who isn't too happy about the pressures she's feeling to marry a goofy redheaded guy, returns to Wonderland and is told that she's the chosen one and will have to slay something called a Jabberwocky with a vorpal blade that goes snicker-snack. She gets help from an assortment of odd characters (a disappearing kitty, a mad hatter, a dormouse, tubby twins, a stoned caterpillar) who she should remember but doesn't. Meanwhile, Wonderland's completely gone to hell with the Red Queen making everybody's life miserable. As the frabjous day approaches, Alice is needed more and more, but she first needs to be convinced that she's the right Alice and get back to her normal size.

Maybe I should have seen this in 3-D. Maybe I should just see everything in 3-D actually. I did really like the look of Tim Burton's Wonderland, as artificial and computer-generated as it was. Even without 3-D, there was a depth to the setting with endless swirling grays in the sky, gnarled trees, cartoonish mushrooms. The computer-animated creatures--the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, et. al--were very well done, even when being ridden on. In fact, the special effects were great all around, working to keep things visually interesting even if they weren't anywhere near realistic. Unfortunately, I don't think Tim Burton adds anything of real value to the Wonderland canon. The dialogue, the characters, and the goings-on seem a bit rehashed, and the story never feels fully realized to me, just an excuse to throw some trippy visuals and nifty special effects on the screen. I really wish there would have been more playfulness in the dialogue. A lot of the whimsy and fun of the Disney cartoon and Lewis Carroll's novels is from the wordplay, and that's pushed aside to focus on a bunch of jerky action sequences and the aforementioned imagery. From the halfway point on, I lost interest more and more. I didn't like Alice very much, not even enough to look up the name of the gal who played her, but Johnny Depp does his usual fine job and Crispin Glover's also got a major part. There's a lot to like in Burton's Wonderland, but it suffers from the same problems as most of his movies, especially the remakes--it's just too much and almost disrespects the originals.

I can't believe I missed the opportunity to see Crispin Glover in 3-D, by the way.

Back to the Future

1985 time travel classic

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Marty McFly, a guy who apparently is on an eight-or-so-year high school graduation plan, zips to 1985 via his eccentric scientist friend Doc Brown's Delorean/time-machine. He saves his future dad from injury by pushing him out of the way before his future grandfather hits him with a car. Unfortunately, that's how his parents met, and Marty McFly has inadvertently changed the course of history. He has to get his folks together before the rest of his body disappears like his hand does when he's trying to play guitar and sing a Chuck Berry song, all while Doc Brown tries to figure out a way to send him back to the year 1985. It's a thrill a minute!

I haven't been able to get the music of Huey Lewis out of my head since I watched this. I'm not talking about the last time I watched it either. I'm talking about since I watched it in 1985. But since 1993 and the release of Robert Altman's wonderfully-depressing Short Cuts, I haven't been able to not have Huey Lewis's music stuck in my head without it being accompanied by the image of Huey Lewis's penis. And the really interesting thing is that on certain days--stormy ones when my hair is longish and unkempt--that combination of Huey Lewis's music and penis actually seems to have the power to send me into the past or into the future. No, I've not been able to harness this time travel power and go wherever I want. Once, I went to 1985 and watched Back to the Future in a theater with my younger self (no, my younger self didn't see my current self) and my friend Vernon. Once, I traveled into the future, the year 2025 to be exact, and found out that I turn into a fat guy. (Yes, my future self did see my current self and couldn't keep his hands off me; we may have made out.) But anyway, this is one of those movies that gets a hefty nostalgia bonus as well as the Crispin Glover bonus. It's not perfect film-making, but it very well might be close to perfect story-telling. Self-referential and endlessly surprising (unless you've seen it a dozen times, I guess), this has great character development and a contagious creative energy. I absolutely refuse to pay attention enough to stick my fingers in the (probably numerous) plot holes because this is the type of movie you really want to watch with the innocent gut of a child instead of the mind of a snobby adult. Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd have great chemistry. The former is perfectly likable and gives a performance that makes this easy to watch countless times. The latter's performance is inspired and perfectly loony. Of course, Crispin Glover is great because he's always great, but this movie has one of my favorite Crispin Glover moments, his character's big turnaround. It makes me cry every time. I also like Thomas F. Wilson as the villain here. This movie is a tremendous amount of fun. And it's only the first part of a trilogy! I'm sure the next one has to be great, too!

Dead Man

1995 metaphysical Western masterpiece

Rating: 18/20

Plot: William Blake arrives via Crispin Glover-driven train to the Wild West town of Machine where he's been promised a job as an accountant. He's too late, and the job's been given to somebody else. His life is threatened. He meets a woman, and because he looks just like Johnny Depp, she sleeps with him. Unfortunately, her fiance strolls in after the deed is done and shoots them both. Blake kills the man, steals a horse, and flees into the wilderness. An Indian named Nobody, thinking he's the reincarnation of English Romantic poet William Blake, guides him on his journey as a trio of bounty hunters--the vile Cole Wilson, the verbose Conway Twill, and young Johnny "The Kid" Pickett--sent by his victim's father track him down.

On certain days, usually Thursdays when the sun's hitting me just right and I've added just the right amount of sugar to my tea, my answer to the question "What is your favorite Western featuring Iggy Pop wearing a dress?" would probably be this peyote-induced nightmare of a travelogue, Dead Man. Man, does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie or does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie? Following a quote about how it's preferable to not travel with a dead man, you get the incoherent ramblings of Crispin Glover and the senseless shooting of buffalo from a train. Then, Depp's character enters Machine. William Blake walks the dusty street, passes a coffin shop a la Hang 'Em High, a bunch of animal skulls fastened to a wall, a wagon filled with antlers, a urinating horse, a grunting hog in the middle of the road, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes on the receiving end of a blow job, and a creepy-looking fellow with troll ears and a troll nose, all with Neil Young's plaintive guitar. They're visuals that let you know what's what in Machine, reminiscent of one of my favorite film images--Kurosawa's dog with a human hand in its mouth at the beginning of Yojimbo. The tone is set, and then you get a ceaselessly surprising man-on-the-run Western with more great Neil Young, lovely shots of great American Western landscapes shot in crisp black and white, an odd assortment of characters and cameos, faux-philosophies, and the best comedy this side of Dante's Inferno. This might be the funniest movie I've seen all year, and it's definitely the funniest Western ever made. Sorry, Mel Brooks. At the center of that is William Farmer's Nobody, the embodiment of a stereotype, spouting Native American-ish riddles and non sequiturs. My favorite scene might be where Nobody tries on William Blake's hat. No, my favorite scene is probably where Nobody and Blake are watching three mysterious men, one being Iggy Pop as "Sally" and another being Billy Bob Thornton, and barely being able to hear snippets of Iggy's retelling of the "Three Little Bears" story. Or maybe my favorite scenes are the ones with Robert Mitchum. No, wait, Crispin Glover's in the movie, so my favorite scene probably has him in it. Or maybe they're all my favorite scenes. It's definitely unique, a riddle of a film that grows every time you watch it and one of those movies you almost want to watch again as soon as it's over. It might be an acquired taste. It's dreamy Johnny Depp as a straight man in an askew Wild West philosophical comedy, mysteriously poetic and absurdly fascinating, and if you've got a high tolerance for the offbeat, this just might be your cup of poisoned tea.

Now, do you have any tobacco?

It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.

2007 movie

Rating: 16/20 (Anonymous: 14/20)

Plot: Paul, a middle-aged man suffering from Cerebral Palsy, is wasting away in a nursing home. All he wants to do is be like everybody else and often fantasizes about just that. Except "everybody else" in this case is limited to men who strangle women after they sleep with them.

This isn't widely available, and a lot of people would argue that it shouldn't be. This is far from a perfectly-constructed movie. Heck, it's far from a competently-constructed movie. But there's a backstory that transforms this from just a movie to a work of art. The screenwriter and lead is the late Steven C. Stewart, a guy who really did suffer from Cerebral Palsy and who spent the better part of his life imprisoned in a nursing home. The great Crispin Hellion Glover brought his story to life. He does it cheaply--with some gross colors, some really obvious classical music choices, and more than a few editing errors. But there's a refreshing naivete with both the writing and the direction (the latter, possibly intentional) that makes this like outsider art. Outsider art made by an insider? When I was trying to put some words together, I had trouble coming up with anything better than "hideously beautiful," cheap and oxymoronic. Typing "hideously beautiful" embarrasses me as much as some of things I laughed at (uncomfortably) while watching this movie. There's a very dark humor throughout the story as well as some unintentionally funny (or are they intentionally unintentionally funny?) moments, especially any time Crispin Glover's dad Bruce is on-screen. If Bruce Glover doesn't win my yearly Torgo for his small role here, I'll be surprised. I really liked the beginning and end of the movie (a framing device), a terrific scene with police detectives and bendy straws, and a final murder scene that stretches so far into ridiculous territory that it hits you in the eye and makes you ejaculate raisins. Literally! Watching this movie with a crowd of people was fascinating to me. I believe most of the crowd liked what they saw, probably because they came to the theater knowing exactly what to expect, but I think it was liked in different ways. I don't frequently watch movies in big crowds, but I can't remember ever seeing a movie that got this much of a reaction, and that's worth something right there. Well, maybe Ernest Goes to Camp.

I saw this at the IMA. Crispin Glover showed a slide show and read from eight of his novels. Then, he showed this movie. Then, he came back out and kind of answered people's questions. My appreciation for America's finest actor has grown. I didn't stick around to have my cd cover autographed and get a picture because I was tired. I really hope he comes back to Indy some time to show his first movie.

One final note: Although I don't think any of you will see this (other than Larst), I do feel the need to warn you. The violence isn't graphic, but there's a lot of sex. This isn't for everybody, but for the right, open-minded audience, this delivers.

9

2009 animated movie

Rating: 13/20 (Mark: 16/20)

Plot: A miniature burlap man wakes up and goes outside. He meets another burlap man, and they're attacked by a robot kitty. The second burlap man, appropriately named 2, is captured. The first burlap man, the title character, finds some other burlap men and talks one of them into journeying to some smoke stacks to find 2. They find some other burlap men and one burlap woman, and then 9 puts a bottle cap into a machine and chaos ensues.

Well, I really liked the nightmarish, apocalyptic imagery in this, the dilapidated structures, the tattered backgrounds, all the dismal grays. The setting sets a tone here, and the animation is really beautiful. I also like the antagonist, a menacing giant insect-like machine and all of its wild creations. The creativity involved in creating this little world is astonishing. I don't, however, care for how the little burlap people move around. And worse, they don't have enough individual personality to make them real characters. They're all inventive, one of them is sort of a bastard, one of them is a tough guy/bully type, one of them is a warrior. But they lack depth that would have made me give a damn when one of them was threatened or when some of them perish. The flat voice work, with the exception of Crispin Glover (America's greatest actor), also didn't help. I really didn't understand this movie. As my brother said, the geography doesn't make sense at all. These burlap people were created and then didn't move more than a hundred yards before 9 finds them, and then they're all of a sudden zipping around this little world? It doesn't make sense. Neither did the majority of the rest of this. Souls? Satanic rituals? Soul-sucking robots? Burlap ghosts? Magical bottle caps? Still, the experience is worth watching. It's easy to get lost in this weird little world and wonderful to watch the explosion of creativity on the screen. I just wish it made more sense.

The People vs. Larry Flynt

1996 biopic

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Larry Flynt, a true American hero, struggles for his right to free speech (i.e. naked people, the slander of religious leaders) while the conservatives, those enemies of freedom and democracy, fight him every step of the way, practically setting fire to your Constitution and your flag and stomping all over them. The story also details the struggles of Flynt's wife, Ginavah McDruguser, and her downward spiral.

With friends like Crispin "Hellion" Glover and Courtney Love, who needs enemas? First off, this is an entertaining and sprawling glimpse at the life of Flynt and brings up some important issues about what constitutes free speech. It's a dialogue starter. It's not without problems and the overt propaganda might be one of them. The loose structure and sketchy details might be other problems. The acting is very good straight up and down the cast list. Woody's great, and Courtney Love shows a lot of flexibility in her role as a strung-out skank. She's so good that you can practically smell her through the screen. What a stretch that must have been for her! Crispin Glover, as always, is fantastic, and Ed Norton, playing really the only character who is likable, is solid. The entire movie is fairly effective despite its density and extraneous wanderings. Very similar to Forman's later Man on the Moon, another biopic that I liked even though I had almost no interest or opinion on the subject matter.

Brand upon the Brain!

2006 magically realistic silent dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Guy Maddin (the movie's director), summoned by his dying mother, returns to the island on which he grew up in order to paint the lighthouse his parents used as both an orphanage and a laboratory for bizarre experiments with anti-aging treatments. While painting, he reminisces about his childhood on the island--the overbearing mother's suppers, his faceless father's tinkerings, his first love, his sister's first love, the tics and twitches of his friend Neddie, and other bizarre happenings.

A fantastically and grotesquely unique offering from Canadian Guy Maddin. It's like a silent movie that would have driven 1920's audiences completely insane and likely kick-started an even Greater Depression. Vomit-inducing jump cuts, obscene camera angles, general fuzziness. It's a singularly odd effort, an oddness that is difficult to sustain in a movie that might be a little too lengthy for its own good. This thing toured (tours?) with guest narrators (Isabella Rossellini is the default narrator on the dvd, but I couldn't pass up the Crispin "Hellion" Glover option!), sound effects guys, an orchestra, and even a castrato. That'd be a hoot! Too bizarre for most tastes, but I really like this guy's voice. Spazzy montages set the mood; images melt into poetry and struggle to tell a tale or two. The title cards and the narration ("Good for dippin'" and "What's a suicide attempt without a wedding?") are very funny, especially when they completely clash with the imagery. And Katherine Scharhon, who plays young Guy's love interest Wendy and the alter-ego detective Chance Hale, needs to be in every single movie. To date, this is her only role. It's not a movie. It's an experience!

Wild at Heart

1990 romantic comedy

Rating: [I have rewatched this. See the new review here.]

Plot: Sailor Ripley, released from prison following a killing in self defense, flees with his girlfriend Lula against the will of the Wicked Witch of the West. They encounter some weird people, grotesque automobile accidents, and the horrors of the crazy world while a pair of bounty hunters are sort of hot on their trail. They also smoke a lot of cigarettes and have sex. A lot.

[See new review here. I rewatched this.]

I still contend that every single movie should have Crispin Hellion Glover in it. Not a lot of Crispin Hellion Glover, but enough.

Beowulf

2007 animated crap

Rating: 8/20 (Dylan: 4/20)

Plot: The party noise from Heorot disturbs the neighbors, most notably a giant grunting demon named Grendal. Grendal comes over and very politely asks them to turn down their grunting and harps. Then he tears a lot of them in half. The king Hrothgar and his subjects become melancholic and close down the world's finest mead hall. Beowulf pops in out of nowhere, introduces himself over fifty times, and promises to kill Grendal a little over forty times. Clothes are removed, harps are again withdrawn, arms are torn off, and demons howl and hop around in a strobe-light. Beowulf's next challenge is to go after Grendal's nippleless mother. Will he survive and rule as King Beowulf and get to make whoopie with numerous young women? Will his vanity be his downfall? Will the audience suffer from vertigo and stop caring?

This got both the midget bonus and the Crispin "Hellion" Glover bonus (although I couldn't understand a word he said) and, more importantly, reminded me that I need to get my hands on the movie Crispin Glover directed which more than likely has midgets in it. Other than that, this telling of the epic poem is pretty worthless. It's not as creepy as The Polar Express but it's not any better either. It's inflated nonsense, bloated with over-the-top visuals (mostly people flailing around or pretty lights or "camera" swoops and sweeps) and a terrible over-the-top script. Dylan and I both laughed multiple times--when Beowulf introduced himself with a heroic "I am Beowulf" for the nineteenth time (probably so we won't confuse him with Dar in The Beastmaster); when he faught Grendal naked while having his genitals covered up in ways that would make Austin Powers groan; when Beowulf announced, "I will kill your monster!" I don't like this kind of animation (motion capture?) at all. The people don't move like people, and it's distracting even when the backgrounds are aesthetically and artistically pleasing. The characters nearly look real though; unfortunately, they just look like really really terrible actors. Speaking of which, John Malcovich phoned in a role (maybe literally?) and Angelina Jolie's lustiness was absolutely embarrassing. Robert Zemeckis needs to cut it out. The Polar Express and this piece of crap were enough. Next: an animated version of A Christmas Carol. Why the heck does anybody need that? Unless it stars that kid from Webster, this is nothing I want to see.

Here's a crudely animated me: