I am unprepared to explain why this movie is so terribly, terribly brilliant, but you must rush out and see it regardless because movies this impressive only come along once in a blue moon. Also, it has puppets.
Written: Nov 03 '99 (Updated Nov 04 '99)
Product Rating:
Pros: Puppets! Puppets! Puppets! And Katherine Keener is gorgeous.
Cons: I am unable to wipe my memory away so that I can see it a second time with the same sense of awe and admiration.
Storytime: It's seventh grade, and my friend Alan Boylston and I are in his backyard, trying to make, um, napalm. You know, a kind of plasticky liquid substance that, once lit, burns for a very, very long time...? Alan had picked up a copy of "The Anarchist's Handbook," if I remember correctly (and this was before the Internet had made it real easy to find!), and within it was a simple recipe for making homemade napalm. Something about napalm fascinates: perhaps because of the way it (the word, not the napalm) rolls off the tongue, the richness of the syllables; or perhaps because fire is fun, and making fire is ESPECIALLY fun, and making fire that NEVER STOPS BURNING is... Well, you get the idea. Regardless, Alan and I were determined, and so we set to work, young arsonists at play.
(Equal parts gasoline and styrofoam, if you must know.)
Things were going fine for the first little bit of the firemaking -- put the two ingredients together in an old kitchen pot and the oozy melted styrofoam floats to the top of the mix, while whatever pure gasoline remains hangs about below. Dip in a stick, spell out your names in napalm on Alan's backyard concrete porch, apply match, and WHOOM! Your name in lights. Well, my name, anyway. My first name. Very pretty; fire pretty! But clearly, something else is needed. What else? Aha! A last name to go next to the first!
Return to pot. Dip stick into gobs of remaining napalm, unaware of the embers still burning on end of stick. Quickly be made aware when giant tunnel of flame erupts from old kitchen pot, leaping several feet into the air and quickly climbing much higher. Panic. Run to backyard garden hose; turn knob; not working! Scream obscenities; rush into house with Alan looking for alternative methods to douse flames in water. Moments later, reemerge outside, each carrying two 42oz. "Big Gulp" cups from the neighborhood corner grocery. Pour on flames, which are now licking the porch ceiling (!) Return to house. Repeat. Return. Repeat. Continue.
Finally, after what literally seemed like decades, the fire subsided. Fortunately, before the flames had burned through the napalm and into the approximately 2 gallons of gasoline below; fortunately. Still alive and well, and utterly relieved, we retire to Alan's living room to watch cartoons on TV.
Now, why we did not die that day is beyond me; I've often spent late nights up, pondering this question. By all accounts what we were doing should've taken out a good chunk of the porch, and us along with it. I mean, folks -- that was a f**cking huge pot o' gasoline. But it didn't blow. We were spared. I was spared -- but for what?
And now I know. It's so I could see this movie. It's so I could see "Being John Malkovich."
Folks, lemme tell ya: this is a freakin' amazing film. Have you ever watched a movie that stunned you so completely, that was so totally perfect in every way, that it made you wish you'd written and directed and produced and acted as stunt double and possibly even catered and in every other way done anything you could to take credit for any part of the film's creation? So that people would really, really know how clever you are? Because that's what this movie did for me. Instead, I'm reduced to telling childhood memories in an attempt to make whoever's reading this think I'm even the slightest bit witty. Folks, I'm not; but this movie -- wow!
I suppose it's pretty pitiful to say that you're "speechless" when you're also writing up a movie review, isn't it? Ah, well. I am. Speechless, that is, in the face of this movie.
Plot? I don't want to ruin it for you. The title pretty much sums it up. Acting is superb. Dialog is excellent. Set design is to die for. Concept is terrific, and delivery is superb. Idea is sustained and well-executed. Also, there are numerous sequences with puppets, some of which are erotic. Really, what more do you need?
Look, just go see it, dammit! You're wasting time reading this review! Go see it! Now! GO!
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