Crispin Glover, director...

[westcoastvol]

I saw this over the weekend. I dunno how to explain it, so I'm letting the press release do the talking for WHAT IS IT:

Featuring a cast largely comprised of actors with Down Syndrome, the film is not about Down Syndrome. Glover describes it as "Being the adventures of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe and how to get home, as tormented by an hubristic racist inner psyche." He also explains that the film is his psychological reaction to corporate controls of expression limiting the exploration of taboo.

In addition to writing and directing WHAT IS IT?, Glover also appears in the film as an actor in the role of "Dueling Demi-God Auteur and The young man's inner psyche." Fairuza Balk voices one of the snails. WHAT IS IT? is part one of a trilogy. The soundtrack makes use of Wagner and Bartok excerpts to ironic effect, as well as tracks by late Church of Satan high priest Anton LaVey, Charles Manson and a country track by Klassic Klan recording artist Johnny Rebel.

"Scenes with naked women in elephant masks, Shirley Temple, Glover being lowered deus-ex-machina style into a Maxfield Parrish scene...It's like Fellini on psychedelics -- wildly creative but completely twisted." -- Jane Ganahl, San Francisco Examiner

 

[shotglass]

And we expected Crispin Glover to go the Disney route?

 

[Freelance Hack]

Well, ain't that a kick in the head.

 

[KJIM]

Creepy Thin Man behind a camera?

 

[westcoastvol]

Now I can say I've seen a giant clam shell open up to reveal a man w/Down's Syndrome sitting inside who then receives a handjob from a random woman.

At last I can die in peace.

 

[Clever username]

He should be the Joker in The Dark Knight. Him or Johnny Depp.

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

If you haven't listened to his music album, "The Big Problem?", you are letting the best in life pass you by.

There's a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Boots," some hip-hop song about masturbation, a lengthy narrative about rats and disease and a song about hating clowns. Among others.

 

[Bob Cook]

I give him my lifetime best actor in a bad movie award for his role as the orphanage owner in "Like Mike." In most movies, that's a cartoonishly creepy and dangerous role. But Glover made you believe he was an evil exploiter of children, for real. Everyone else is doing an NBA-fellating kiddie flick, and he's playing Satan incarnate.

 

[BYH]

I give him my lifetime best actor in a bad movie award for his role as the orphanage owner in "Like Mike." In most movies, that's a cartoonishly creepy and dangerous role. But Glover made you believe he was an evil exploiter of children, for real. Everyone else is doing an NBA-fellating kiddie flick, and he's playing Satan incarnate.

I saw that. That was extremely ****ed up. It was some forgettable family movie pap with...Crispin Glover? Who came up with THAT idea?

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

This thread would be useless without posting a link to Crispin's glorious catastrophe on Letterman while he was out promoting "River's Edge" years ago, an incident that ended with Glover attempting to kick Letterman in the head.

 

[shotglass]

WBCC, you are a mensch for finding that link. One of the most out-there things ever on late-night.

 

[OTD]

This thread would be useless without posting a link to Crispin's glorious catastrophe on Letterman while he was out promoting "River's Edge" years ago, an incident that ended with Glover attempting to kick Letterman in the head.

I actually saw that live but had forgotten how bad it was. Didn't he go on to wreck Letterman's desk?

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

I only wish I knew the answer to that, OTD.

Here is the follow-up to the Letterman performance, a video for Clowny Clown Clown, in which he seems to distance himself from the doofus he made of himself on The Late Show.

 

[HejiraHenry]

If you haven't listened to his music album, "The Big Problem?", you are letting the best in life pass you by.

There's a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Boots," some hip-hop song about masturbation, a lengthy narrative about rats and disease and a song about hating clowns. Among others.

I have a copy of that. I don't think I ever made it all the way through, though.

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

I stumbled across it while browsing at Amoeba Records in SFO one day, and knew I had to check it out. That was shortly after seeing Willard. I have to wonder what his fascination with rats is, considering discussions of rats spreading bubonic plague pop up in the narrative on the album.