Visual Movies: The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

(Is it wrong that I want that dress?)

Bitchin’.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

(1989)

Directed by Peter Greenaway

Starring: Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, and Alan Howard

It is so wrong that the DVD is out of print.

Awaken from Your Dark Night: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

It’s pure horror. The shadows that play on the walls of our subconscious.

In a short form, it’s an exquisite mind fuck, but this is one of those movies that doesn’t deserve a short-form right-off.

Everything about it is visceral, with a strong emphasis on the visual: sets, costumes, title cards, filters, make up, actors. The version I watched had an updated score by Rainer Viertblock, a kind of twangy, discordant jazz that roots around and picks up all of the bizarre overtones of the film, bringing to the audience the need to sit up and pay attention.

While being extraordinarily different, there are pieces of it that fit into the usual movie scenario: The hero, a villain, an idyllic maiden.

It plays with your emotions, suspicions and expectations. It changes the perspective and the mood with painted shadows and grimly costumed characters. While touching on the Victorian Gothic, it also envelops Europe, post-WWI during the time of expressionism and Dadaism. If anyone ever doubted that film is art, sit them down and show them this movie.

It is part romantic Victorian novel and part trip into the hell of the mind, the entrapment of insanity and the escape of reality. It is dark and riotous and bizarre, a sleepwalker’s dream on the crooked streets in a surreal German village.

How is it pure horror? While the sets are highly designed, the horrific aspect of the film is simple compared to horror from later years. It is the fear of murder and of death– stripped down bare and unexpected. It is also the fear of no control, whether as a puppet in the hands of a cruel master or loss of control in one’s own mind.

It explores dark imagination, obsession, and the darkness of scientific exploration. Beautiful and frightening, it is not only a must see before you die, it is a film that haunts our nightmares.

Visual Movies: The Legend of 1900

Here’s an idea: Expressing movies as selected images.  That’s basically what they are, but by allowing the blogger freedom to pick which images they think is important, there lies the individual opinions that blogs are all about.

I chose The Legend of 1900 for the first of this project because it’s a strongly visual film.

An Unwritten Life: The Brothers Bloom

Directed by Rian Johnson

Starring: Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, Rinko Kikuchi

Simultaneously a movie I love, but I’m afraid to see again.

Premise: Stephen and Bloom (his first name) have been grifters since they were children, but Bloom (Adrien Brody) wants out, in order to drink by himself in Montengro.  But his brother  convinces him to do one last con.

I’m paraphrasing this, but it’s an important quote: “My brother writes cons like a Russian writes novels… and I’m the vulnerable anti-hero,” Bloom says at one of their usual haunts in Berlin.  Stephen creates plans for their jobs that are so complex, they couldn’t work in real life.  The relationship between the brothers seems almost crafted by Stephen as well, since he knows Bloom well enough to predict his every move and every motivation.

Their last job: Swindle the inheritance of an eccentric heiress, Penelope(Weisz), by letting her have an adventure.  This becomes a wonderful trip to Prague, all scenes and score reminiscent of old French films we sometimes dream about, but find they never really existed in the morning.

All of the dialogue seems as stolen as the rare prayer book they’re after in Prague, but delivered with a light humor that’s juxtaposed with the near-mute Bang Bang (Kikuchi), the Brothers’ assistant and explosive expert.

As my first summer film (it only just made it to my local theater), it matched the great film cliche: It had everything in it that is looked for in a film.  There was action, romance, humor, a heist, travel… Bloom falls for Penelope, seeming to almost sabotage himself in the process.

There’s a lot to love from this film: Thematically black and white costumes, watching Bloom steal a brilliant red apple then run dizzingly down a hill, blowing up a castle in Prague, Bang Bang singing karaoke in Tokyo, card tricks, the brother’s mentor Diamond Dog who Stephen took his right eye out with an antique sword in St. Petersburg, and the achingly adorable relationship between Bloom and Penelope.

And from all of the brother’s lies, the ones that seem the most unbelievable are really the truth.

What I’m afraid of when it comes to this film is whether I would like it the second time around.  A lot of the joy comes from the surprises that wait, hiding in the plot, the twists and turns, and the great final scene.  After seeing it once, how could I possibly recreate that feeling again?  Short of mild amnesia, that is.

Kamikaze Girls

It’s a lot like reading a shojo manga, but live action.  And mildly insane.

 (Yeah I… I really don’t care that I’m using the same image twice in this case).

Kamikaze Girls also known as Shimotsuma monogatari (or Shimostuma Story) is the hyper-tale of Momoko, the antisocial Lolita who is forced to leave her city when her father is exiled by the yakuza.  In the country she meets Ichigo, the tough (but stupid) yanki, and wackiness ensues, etc.

If you have no idea what “Lolita” or “yanki” mean, here’s a brief recap:

Lolita:  Japanese fashion style popular among teenagers to early twenty-somethings, Lolita is typified by lots of lace and frills and usually emmulates a period of history in style, though with shorter skirts and platform shoes.  In the case of Momoko, she is reliving the Rococo period of Europe, which results in a hilarious explanation of what thos 18th century crazy, Mozart-loving Europeans were doing: Embroidery, sex, elegant conversations, more sex, and then a walk through the countryside.

Yanki: The punks of Japan, without a musical affiliation!  They form biker gangs that roam the country and cause fights.  Usually typified by dyed hair (before it became popular, blond hair was a sure sign of being a yanki) and long coats with Chinese calligraphy on them.  In Ichigo’s case, this is a scooter (she couldn’t pass the test for a real motorcycle) and calligraphy spelled wrong in her bike gang, the Ponytails.

Momoko likes being antisocial: According to her, it was always in her nature.  Her father was a low-ranked yakuza (Japanese mafia) member and her mother was a whore, but between them Momoko was born (and her mother had an affair/second marriage with the OB-GYN).  Momoko, in the divorce, decided to stay with her father, because it was more fun and tells her mother to go out, get plastic surgery, and compete in beauty competitions because that’s all she’ll ever have. 

And Momoko grows up, only to fall in love on a class trip with BABY THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT, a frilly Lolita brand.  She spends the next year or two conning her father out of cash to buy these expensive outfits, but once in the countryside, her fuel has dried up.

So she puts an ad out and Ichigo, the yanki rebel idiot, winds up at her door.  And continues to do so, because she… she’s an idiot, let’s just say.  Or likes Momoko’s twisted personality.  Putting that aside, Ichigo tells the reluctant Momoko, who doesn’t want any friends (she finds her ideal death eighty years in the future in a “BABY” dress, found by a robot) her life story and the story of the infamous Yanki leader who wanted to join up all the girl gangs in the province and fight the yakuza.

This could be subtitled as “Modern Japanese Culture in a Box” but there are some subtle plot structures and character development.  Also, more of the Japanese culture could probably be explained better in the book, like how Ichigo wants to live the life of a yanki character in a manga, “Momoko”, which isn’t explained as well in the movie, most likely due to time constraints.

This is my favorite girl-friendship movie because both characters develop according to their reactions to each other.  Ichigo finds acceptance instead of expectations because of Momoko and Momoko learns to trust in other people and do something with her life besides just lazing about and taking strolls.

All of the characters are clowns and over the top, but the hyperactivity of the movie makes it so much fun.  Everything is in day-glow colors and the cinematography is a lot of cuts and short comedic moments to change from scene to scene or to see into the mind of Momoko.  It is a sugary-sweet guilty pleasure at one moment while also managing to convey a deeper meaning just five minutes later.  And it’s endlessly quotable, like “Humans are cowards in the face of happiness.”

There is, of course, the vivid contrast between prim Momoko and vulgar Ichigo, but they each reveal their own faults and gifts, so it comes off as a bit of a cliche, but it works magnificently.

The Dark Knight

Spoilers Abound, my Pretties…

I almost knew what I was walking into when I got to the theater… four weeks late.  I went to see it with my friend, Greyson, who had already seen it, like everyone else.  Further, I saw it at one of those mega theaters with the surround sound on too loud, but it works for movies like this one.  Giant summer blockbusters have that ability, not so much “Dream Girls” (which may have it’s own fabulousness that succeeds, just not with the music blaring constantly in your ear).  I digress…

How can I possibly word the insanity and intensity that is this movie?  It’s a lot of things all at once that I can’t quite get out.  One thing after another after another, and there’s no pause for a break.  If you aren’t watching the bat tank roll over and over then you’re watching some emotional stress with Harvey/Rachel/Bruce triangle.   Or all of the other things that make that movie one glorious hot mess.  Not thirty minutes after walking out did I want to go back to the theater to watch it again.

(On a side note: Anyone want to answer something for me?  I’m watching an episode of Batman: The Animated Series in another window, and is Harvey Dent supposed to be black? His race is totally ambiguous, but almost everyone in this series has the same super-tan skin tone.  Thoughts, opinions, anyone?)

This late in the game, there isn’t a point to give a flat out review for The Dark Knight, so here’s just some of my favorite parts or the parts I want to make note of.

I saw The Dark Knight a few days after I finished reading Dark Victory, the sequel to The Long Halloween which is getting a lot of the credit for the plot of TDK.  Knowing that, I had a great appreciation for how Christopher Nolan kept the film- really, both films– close to the comic roots.  Dark Victory  has a lot of the themes relating to Harvey Dent that gets examined in the movie, especially how his romantic attachments affected his transformation, though this changes from his wife Gilda to Rachel.

I DID NOT KNOW THAT GORDON WASN’T DEAD.  Greyson was really close to laughing at me in the theater at this point. I think I went through all the stages of grief in the next x number of minutes before that Supah Awesome Cool confrontation in the streets.  When I saw that my friend was smiling, I thought that was to reassure me that no, he wasn’t really dead, but they told his wife!  HIs kid was all wide-eyed and wandering around.

This upset me for my own reasons.  This past year I came to the conclusion with another friend of mine, Miss Natalia, as we worked our way through all of the great Batman graphic novels of the past thirty years, no one hurts Gordon as a kind of unwritten law.  The closest it’s come to is The Killing Joke, and if you’ve read the comic you know why and if you haven’t then read the comic.  So I was angry at Nolan for about twenty minutes and then Greyson did laugh at me, for obvious reasons, so there we go.

Heath Ledger, rest his spirit, is the best and scariest Joker ever.  I don’t think anyone could top his performance, even twenty or thirty years in the future when another director wants to revamp the franchise for another interpretation.  This is the performance for any past Jokers, any future Jokers, or really any other Batman villains that will get used in the next movies.  This is the face of psychopath, in it’s purest form: Less a man, more an agent of chaos.  No one knows how the Joker works, and as it is, I’d rather not ever know.  You would go insane just trying to find out, because a force of nature isn’t meant to be understood to any real extent. 

Meanwhile, I think it’s inevitable that the Joker character will be revived because he’s the perfect foil for Batman.  They’re both insane people doing insane things, but one’s Chaos while the other is Order, even if it’s the kind of order that exists outside of the norms of society.  To the society of the movies, both are like opposite sides of nature, especially in that they just appear.  The audience may know what makes Batman tick, but the citizens of Gotham don’t.  Now it’s switched for the audience, where we will always have a character that we will never understand.  We get a small taste of what it’s like to live in that city, although we’re separated by the silver screen.

Action sequences.  I get lost with them, or in them, but they’re a lovely item of modern cinema.  Like watching lightning in a bottle, over and over everything becomes what it is, and it falls apart and comes together.  They’re lengthy, but they’re lengthy for good reason, not just to keep the lowest common denominator awake.  The best are the street duel and the final battle with the Joker, as it switches views from the cell phone sonar and what’s actually happening.

Harvey Dent, as a character.  Everyone talks about Heath Ledger, and with good reason, but Aaron Eckhart’s performance was very striking as Dent, moving from ultimate hero as the white knight figure to another avenging villain.  The ruined half of his face was terrible in the best ways for that representation.  I don’t understand on a realism level why he didn’t get some bacterial infection and die as soon as he stepped outside of the hostpital though– all of that exposed flesh.  And bone.  And… ew.  Just, that’s a nightmare what happened to Dent and that’s how we’re supposed to see it.  How everything ended horribly and ugly and why Batman decided that Harvey couldn’t be seen to the public as corruptible. 

And I think that’s all I’ve got on this for now.  Woosh, that was a lot, but it feels good to get it off my mind and onto print.

Ruined by God: Brideshead Revisted Recap

I saw Brideshead Revisted at my favorite theater with my good friend Rachel, Thursday afternoon.  There was much munching of awesome concessions, like giant cookies and kettle popcorn, and hanging out in a theater that plays cool Indie Music as you wait in the dark for the screen to turn silver with the movie.

Brideshead is one of those heartrending movies with heartrending scores and performances.  Costumes are to die for too. 

Charles (Matthew Goode), with the grimmest father in the world, goes off to Oxford and by a chance of drunken projectile vomit becomes friends with Sebastian Flyte, a man who carries a teddy bear, is an alcoholic, and doesn’t take being gay as a phase in 1920s England. Ain’t he impressive? 

This friendship acts mainly as Charles observing Sebastian, then the rest of his oppressed family at the House Charles Falls in Love With: Brideshead.  And okay, maybe he also likes Seb’s sister Julia too.

The important thing is that Charles is an artist, an atheist, and is intrusted with keeping Sebastian’s blood alcohol levels under control.  Oh, and staying away from Julia because his mother (played by the wonderful Emma Thompson) thinks atheists are too middle class to marry her daughter. 

As a film, the story is based on relationships: Between friends, lovers, siblings, parents, and God.  The aspect of Roman Catholicism is used as a means of keeping the Flyte children under heavy control by their mother and later on affects them through their relationships, most notably Julia and Charles.  To Sebastian it stunts his growth, leaving him an impudent child prone to not getting what he wants and in love with attention.

The  Brideshead estate acts like a player in the story, but more as a metaphor for the family as a whole.  It is seen only once as a whole through Charles’s eyes.  To him it is the most majestic place on earth, but every otehr scene with the house in it, it can only be seen in pieces.  As the story progresses it falls into disrepair, with the stone work getting shabbier or with pieces falling out of the stairs or with the statues turing black, the big foutain of Once Upon a Time Male Skinny Dipping stopping it’s streams.

All that remains perfectly in tact inside th house are the religious works, the painting Sebastian admits to loathing and the family chapel, the only connecting pieces Charles has to the family for his appreciation of art and the mother’s love of the religion.

Charles cannot come out of his relationships with any members of the family unchanged, but after years away from those closest to him, he cannot abandon the memories.  The house brings them together, the house let’s them fall.  Another must-see of the summer.

Benny & Joon

A Great use of The Pretenders

Thanks to DVR, I was finally able to watch Benny & Joon, a gem of the 90s.  I first heard about this film in freshman year Film Analysis, during the BEST PROJECT EVAH!!

BEST PROJECT EVAH!!! happened to be to show your favorite movie, present a scene to the class, and write an analytic essay about it.  But because this was awesome, even the essay was fun.  Two people showed this movie, and presented it pretty much as it was.  It would be over a year later when I would get any closer to seeing this movie: My friend had a copy he took out during Chemistry.  Unfortunately, it turned out that this was a copy he himself had borrowed, so I was out of luck.

Thank you, DVR! I got around to watching it this afternoon, and there is a word to describe it and that’s kawaii, because English just doesn’t cut it!  I love the Japanese word for cute because it comes automatically for me when I feel something cute coming.  Say, a puppy dog or every time Johnny Depp does or say something in this movie.  This is his Cute Stage, a little after Edward Scissorhands and a little before What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?

The story is a man (Benny; Aiden Quinn) takes care of his mentally ill sister, Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson).  Joon is less drooling at the mouth mentally ill and more misunderstood artist who has panic attacks (of a kind) kind of mentally ill.  And she’s just generally disruptive in most society, but in an artistic sort of way.  Benny is on the brink of sending Joon to a home when she gets Sam (Johnny Depp) in a card game.  Sam loves Buster Keaton and dresses like him and has an encyclopedic knowledge of film.  It’s like he lives for Turner Classic Movies, pretty much, and his cousin is sick of him so he unloads Sam in a card game.

Sam proves to be perfect for the Pearl family.  He’s quirky and understanding of Joon, and manages to charm Benny enough that he trusts Joon with him.  So Benny goes out to get a life while Sam and Joon fall in love.  Yay.

As an aside: I would love to live in the house in this movie.  There’s a river right next to it and a crazy greenhouse and Joon, in her artistic soul, paints everything that doesn’t move.

I love the over protective relationship Benny has with Joon because it feels natural.  He’s so used to taking care of her that everything that could conceivably be a threat is treated thusly, even with Sam.  Mostly Benny just comes off as a jerk, but there is that honesty in the perfomance of the character.  And that’s true for all of the characters, they all have these brilliant flaws that makes them more loving by the end of the film.

This also makes great use of pop music in the soundtrack, which can help a bad film stagger to its lonely death or help a good film end on a high note.  The Prentenders “500 Miles” is the latter, used both to open the film and as a closing.

I’d call this a grade-A sleepover movie, but also a Rainy Day flick or just something to cuddle with.  So ends my long journey to the quirkiest love story produced by Hollywood.

12 Movie Meme

I was tagged by Caitlin at  http://1416andcounting.wordpress.com/  for the 12 Movie Meme, where you design a film festival using your own brains, braun, talent, and personal choices (be what they may) created, as a daunting task, by http://lazyeyetheatre.blogspot.com/2008/07/12-movies-meme.html, who says: 

“On the surface it seems fun and easy, and yet scratch the surface a bit and you’ll find a very daunting task because what you choose is a personal reflection. And you can’t willy nilly it. Your 12 movies should be like a good mixed tape. Strong at first, brought down a little right after, then up again, solid in the middle with a big finish.

So here are the Meme rules:

1) Choose 12 Films to be featured. They could be random selections or part of a greater theme. Whatever you want.

2) Explain why you chose the films.

3) Link back to Lazy Eye Theatre so I can have hundreds of links and I can take those links and spread them all out on the bed and then roll around in them.

4) The people selected then have to turn around and select 5 more people.”

So now I come to ponder to myself, just what WOULD I show at some crazy film festival, where I had veto power and I’m the one concocting this thing to begin with?

To, start:

It’s Gotta Be Southern

Big Fish

This is one of the unique plumes in Tim Burton’s hat-o’-films for various reasons, one being that it actually was shot in the same area as where the movie takes place.   Further, it’s… bright.  And is full of Britisth actors faking Southern accents like they were born down south.  This movie is a good beginning film, since it is part fairy tale, part family drama.  I love the angst Billy Crudup manages to work up as Will Bloom, who can’t seem to understand his father at all.

Dead Man Walking

Someone in my Cinema Ethics’s class this year pointed out that this is a quintessencial nineties movie, what with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon as the stars and… that’s pretty much true.  All of the action takes place in Louisiana and it’s technically a biopic about a nun’s relationship with a man on death row.  After the light, comes the deep, dark issue-y goodness that is Dead Man Walking.  And, if anything else, you can snicker at Sean Penn’s mullet.  Then cry your eyes out at the end of the film.

Growing Up in Japan

Late Spring

This is a post-World War II flick about one family in Japan.  Namely, the only daughter of a novelist who still lives with her father and is pressured into marriage.  Noriko is in denial about her situation and repressed–she doesn’t want to get married because she’s comfortable living with her father.  Until about a quarter of the way through, Noriko is just annoying because her smile is permafixed to her face and it’s more than just a little disturbing, but then the layers of sorrow come out.  Not an upper of a film, but enlightening to the Japan of sixty years ago.

Kamikaze Girls

My favorite hyper-lolita-friendship movie.  Ever.  With Cabbage to spare.  This movie combines my love of quick cuts and weird characters with the Japanese fashion movement Gothic Lolita.  There’s a novel and I’d love to read it (once i get through the 25ish books kicking around my room).  What’s fun with this movie is that you could try to read into while watching, or you could just sit back and let the crazy take you.

 A Night of Fantasia

The Fall

ZOMG, Charles Darwin?

I saw this movie about a month ago, and it blew me away.  It makes you think about stories and story telling, while the relationship between Roy and the little girl is just adorable and actually touching (going where few movies are able to go to anymore).  The fantasy of the second plot, the stories Roy tells, reveals this beautiful world of colors and ruins and Charles Darwin in a really ugly coat.  The extra plus?  This movie did not use any CGI.  Everything was set designed or filmed on location.

Mirrormask

When Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean come together: Magic.  This contrasts with The Fall well because it moves from having no CGI at all to having over half of the movie entirely CGI.  This is one of the modern fairy tales in film that just leaves a person smiling.  Character to watch is Valentine, who is hilarious and weird and wraps up the ending well, when it comes.  Also, if you happen to like audio books, this one is brilliant.

Ed Wood Nite

Plan Nine from Outer Space (MST3K Version)

Part of why Plan Nine from Outer Space fails at being a “good” movie, is that it’s boring.  It’s the most terrible movie in the world for a reason, and that’s a big one.  With the guys from Myster Science Theater 3000, the entertainment level is raised and keeps people laughing and awake for the night.  In time for…

Ed Wood

The cute lil’ biopic directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp.  It’s fun!  It’s weird!  It’s wanton!  It’s in black and white!  This is one of Burton’s gems in his crown of career, critically acclaimed, and all of that rot.  This movie is just fun: as Ed Wood, Johnny Depp is this eternal optimist or likes to wear women’s clothes and hangs out with Bela Lugosi and Criswell.  It’s endlessly quotable and a good finish for the night.

 Dude, That’s Murder

Rope

Rope just happens to be one of those movies that matches this idea.  And it’s Hitchcockian with it’s “pure cinema” and the murder happens immediately and… whatever.  It’s about snobby rich kids who commit murder to see what it’s like and to impress James Stewart. One’s a psychopath and the other is twitchy because he doesn’t want to get caught.

 M

M is the epitome of classic murder stories.  It’s an early German sound movie that totally kicks ass, but near the end I feel for the murderer.  And ethical questions are posed!  While a weighed trial is held.  Fairly deep and an interesting look at the German city life in the thirties, even through film, or just the end of innocence.

And to end this festival of terrors and delights:

Love, Blood, and Rhetoric (Crack Movies I’m Addicted To)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

This movie makes me blink and say “What the fuck?” aloud everytime I watch it, because it’s technically the closest version of Dracula to the book, but it’s still really crackfilled and… not like the book.  I don’t believe in Francis Ford Coppola after this movie… seriously.  I watch it because of Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkin’s and Winona Rider’s green dress.  But it’s my guilty please, the movie I watch with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Karamelsutra on my lap with the lights off and a sketchpad next to me.

Sleepy Hollow

Blood, Love, and Rhetoric all wrapped up in a film created because Tim Burton and Johnny Depp said “Hey, remember Hammer Horrors?  Let’s make one of those.”  I really enjoy the plot of this movie, but it is one of those films that I watch because I want to watch a hot Johnny Depp or the costumes are gorgeous.  And they are– I might kill someone for the stepmother’s dress (You’ll know it if you’ve seen this movie).  But I’m ending the festival with this because it is one of my favorite movies.  Even if it’s not close to the original plot of the Washington Irving story, it’s beautiful and a great mystery story for those who like them unpredictable.  (hey, can you guys tell that I like Tim Burton?  Because I don’t think I made it obvious enough…).

Thus ends the great and terrible film fest.  God, that took me awhile to come together… but I’m glad I put the effort into it.  It was worth it.

Forward, MARCH!

 

Interstate-60: A Road Trip of Awesome

From Left to Right: OW Grant, Neal Oliver, and the Eightball

 

Interstate-60: Episodes of the Road became, suprisingly, my favorite quirky movie for this year, possibly ever.  At it’s most basic form, it is a Coming-of-Age story, but i’ts just so unique and awesome.  It’s a feel good movie and a comedy and just a quirky movie of American fantasy. 

The story starts out at a bar, because apparantly all great stories start out at bars, as explained in the voiceover by Neal (James Marsden).  Neal is the golden boy, main character, but the most intriguing character is O.W. Grant (Gary Oldman), the answer to America’s wishgranter myth.  He’ll almost never play it straight with you, because he just likes to fuck around.

In Neal’s world, he is an indecisive, struggling artist with dreams of a woman he ends up sketching or painting away, while his girlfriend psychoanalyzes him and his Dad tries to force him into law school.  While at his 22nd birthday lunch, Neal announces his wish aloud after being urged by Grant: He wants answers.  And the best way, in Grant’s eyes, to give him answers is to knock him out with a paint can.

This leads, in the hospital, to a visit from Ray (Christoper Lloyd) and a deck of very unusual playing cards, meant to test Neal’s perception.  But then Ray disappears, and life becomes not quite so normal. Things are just slightly out of place of normalcy and Neal decides to follow the signs– literally.  While at work he sees a billboard with the picture of the girl he’s been drawing on it.  This leads back to Ray, who gets Neal to deliver a package for him to Danver, down a highway that doesn’t exist.

A lot happens within the first twenty minutes to accurately explain what happens in I-60, but it gets easier after that.  It’s just your typical fantasy road trip, full of danger, intrigue, romance, lawyers, drugs, and art.  Whether it is the art, as seen in the art world or the art as seen by Neal, or the art of Life.  “All of them answers, and all of them reasonable.”

This film is fun because there aren’t any rules once you reach Interstate-60 in the story.  Anything can happen, and most things do.  Neal learns about what he could have become as well as what is happening all around him, from slavery disguised as ecstasy to how a man decides to fill up the last days of his life. 

The treat is all of the unique characters who bring out both the fantastical parts of the story and a level of stricking realism.  Not one character is perfect, but they know what they want and are honest about it.  It could be considered a weakness in story telling, a cast of one dimensional characters just created to feed a plot-driven story, but I think that’s the charm of the story.  Part of seeing in a new perception is meeting all of the characters along the way.

If there is a fault in this movie, it’s that they clearly ran out of budget for some sound effects because I’ve heard better in Saturday morning cartoons. 

This movie is a treat and I consider it a must see film.  Even you don’t like it afterwards, it’s an important film to watch.