What Is It?

It takes a very special kind of person to make a movie that is so wretched, beguiling, disgusting and repulsive, but make it in a way that also makes it brilliant and the quintessence of personal cinematic liberation. Crispin Glover, in all of his "out there" antics and predispositions, truly made something that is unique. In a world that has become starkly partisan, this film seems to evade the standard lines of creativity and art and effectively startle everyone.

Right off the bat, the film takes on a rather distant paradigm (if there really is a model at all) and initially shapes it with the likes of Shirley Temple in front of a swastika and naked women pleasuring a man with cerebral palsy. It's rather shocking stuff, but if you had the opportunity for the Q&A sessions after the screenings, it clearly opens up a bag of worms that leaves you wondering whether this is art or just the lowest common denominator. In either guise, you sense the tremor that this film will ultimately cause. It will never be accepted, not even by the supposed auteurs of the world who boringly speak about the human condition. You may not like it, but it is certainly something worth watching.

I appreciate surrealist art. I like dark comedy, the subversive, the cryptic and the bizarre. however this movie is nothing more than a painful waste of time. it completely reeks of "trying too hard" and the use of actors with down syndrome acts only as a gimmick rather than adding any depth. i've seen Crispin glover in other things, and usually he passes as a decent actor. he thrives when he's playing some kind of weirdo. but the only worthwhile roles he's had were written and produced by other people. his own personal work in video or music (yes music) is mostly garbage. this movie is nothing than an answer to a trivia question.

Hilarious, evocative, confusing, brilliant film. Reminds me of Bunuel's L'Age D'Or or Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain-- lots of strange characters mucking about and looking for..... what is it? I laughed almost the whole way through, all the while keeping a peripheral eye on the bewildered and occasionally horrified reactions of the audience that surrounded me in the theatre. Entertaining through and through, from the beginning to the guts and poisoned entrails all the way to the end, if it was an end. I only wish i could remember every detail. It haunts me sometimes.

Honestly, though, i have only the most positive recollections of this film. As it doesn't seem to be available to take home and watch, i suppose i'll have to wait a few more years until Crispin Glover comes my way again with his Big Slide Show (and subsequent "What is it?" screening)... I saw this film in Atlanta almost directly after being involved in a rather devastating car crash, so i was slightly dazed at the time, which was perhaps a very good state of mind to watch the prophetic talking arthropods and the retards in the superhero costumes and godlike Glover in his appropriate burly-Q setting, scantily clad girlies rising out of the floor like a magnificent DADAist wet dream.

Is it a statement on Life As We Know It? Of course everyone EXPECTS art to be just that. I rather think that the truth is more evident in the absences and in the negative space. What you don't tell us is what we must deduce, but is far more valid than the lies that other people feed us day in and day out. Rather one "WHAT IS IT?" than 5000 movies like "Titanic" or "Sleepless in Seattle" (shudder, gag, groan).

Thank you, Mr. Glover (additionally a fun man to watch on screen or at his Big Slide Show-- smart, funny, quirky, and outrageously hot). Make more films, write more books, keep the nightmare alive.

I didn't know what to make of this film. I guess that is what it was all about really. I have never seen a film like it and I doubt that I really ever will again. Glover puts together something that is unique to him. I think to appreciate it you have to read some of his poetry, maybe see one of his slide shows. I really like this guy, he is just so bizarre I can't help it. Note: I saw this film before it was through its final editing, so maybe what I have seen and what others have seen are different. I will know, I guess, if I choose to view the film again. I think I will have to be properly drug influenced...

I thought this movie was supposed to be a drama, not a comedy! I thought the slide show with readings from the eight books before the film was ridiculous, and it seemed like Glover was desperately flailing in his attempts to try to sound like Hunter Thompson on acid. He needs to find his own creativity instead of trying unsuccessfully to be like others. The whole thing was pointless, though there were a few lines here and there that did make me chuckle.

But seriously, I felt like Glover was trying so hard to disturb people that he forgot about direction and plot. Was I disturbed? No. Disappointed? A little. I think it could have been a good movie, but it just wasn't put together just right. Glover, you need a do-over. I would see it again, but I do believe the experience would be better suited for ten or maybe fifteen, but not $25.

It's fine if Glover wants the protagonist to be fighting with racism in his inner psyche, but nothing screams "I want to offend people" like playing Johnny Rebel's "Some N*****s Never Die, They Just Smell That Way." That's not art, that's begging for attention.

The Q&A session afterwards? He had interesting answers, but basically it was all about "I'm trying to disturb people to make them think." Kick the dead horse a little more, why don't ya?