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.