Bug

Not a bad movie. I cannot say that I found the comedy or acting great - but the plot was definitely worth while. It seems to me that many movies follow the same old formulas and scenes and events and that a unique plot for a movie is very rare indeed. Well, this movie is very unique and creative and does cause one to think.

Other movies with unique plots? When "Aliens" and "Jurassic Park" were each first released, I thought the uniqueness of each was great and mind expanding. Of course they were both so copied - including even through their own sequels - that later moviegoers may not remember they had some breakthroughs first.

Bug is such a break through - a new plot direction. Well worth seeing.

I Last night I had the pleasure of seeing the movie BUG at the Florida Film Festival and let me say it was a real treat. The Directors were there and they did a Q&A afterwards. The movie begins with a young boy smashing a roach beneath his foot, a man who is nearby parking his car sees the young boy smash it and runs to ask the kid `why? why? did he have to kill that living creature?' in his rush to counsel the youth in the error of his ways, the man neglects to pay his parking meter, which starts off a whole chain of events involving people not at all related to him, some funny, some sad, and some ridiculous. This movie has a lot of laughs, Lots! and there are many actors which you will recognize. The main actors who stood out in the film for me were: Jamie Kennedy (from his comedy show the Jamie Kennedy Experiment, playing a fortune cookie writer; John Carroll Lynch (who plays Drew's cross dressing brother on the Drew Carey show) playing the animal loving guy who just can't get it right; Brian Cox (The original Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter) playing the germaphobic owner of a Donut and Chinese Food Take Out joint. There is one line where Cox tells his chef to wash off some pigs blood that is on the sidewalk by saying "clean up that death" which is quite funny mostly because of Cox's "obsessed with germs" delivery. The funniest moment in the movie comes when a young boy imitates his father, whom he heard earlier in the day yell out `MotherF*****', while in the classroom. Another extremely funny and surreal scene is when Trudie Styler (Mrs. Sting herself) and another actor perform a scene on a cable access show, from the film the boy in the plastic bubble. The actor who hosts the cable access show is just amazing he is so serious and deadpan and his performance as both the doctor and the boy in the plastic bubble is enthralling. There are many other fine and funny actors and actresses in this film and having shot it in less than a month with a budget of just about $1 million, the directors Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi (who are screenwriters by trade, having written crazy/beautiful and the upcoming Tuxedo starring Jackie Chan) have achieved a film that is great, funny and endearing.

The way this movie unfolds is perfect. Every action is shown and the reaction follows. How everyone is intertwined without them knowing is incredible. Makes me think about the next time i short a waiter.

I won't go over the details of the plot, since other's have mentioned them, and you can read them in the summary...

The supposed wonderful things that happen in this movie, due to the actions of others aren't all that wonderful. The stories contained in the film are just not exciting. I found the idea clever for a while, but it wore thin and started to get annoying after about an hour.

What's so great about these random acts? One guy is going for some girl who doesn't like him...another man is slowly losing his mind and is obsessed about germs, a couple- well, they actually turn out fairly well...the one guy loses his girlfriend and nothing else good happens to him. The trailer, which I only watched after the film, made it seem as tho wonderful things were happening to all these people, all caused by the small acts of others around them.

The fact is- there's nothing big happening to any of them...and these small, random acts don't lead to life changing events. Well, that's not exactly true...but, overall, no one learned some huge lesson, no one changed their entire personality. Nothing like that.

This is a hard movie to criticize, as it is a hard movie to explain to someone who hasn't seen it. It was just missing something for me. Sure, events around us affect our lives- this isn't a newsflash...but, I was just hoping for bigger things in the end- not a bunch of people loosely connected to one another going to Hawaii.

Worth watching twice because of the rapid-paced causal shifts among several compelling stories, "Bug" emerges as a wholly satisfying work of art that plays ever-optimistic love against myriad examples of frustrating reality.

My favorite characters are Wallace (John Carroll Lynch)whose overriding concern for life--from that of a cockroach to the airline passengers for whom he is partially responsible--frames the film; Olive (Christina Kirk), who spends considerable time creating surreal but tasty meals for her impossible husband Ernie (Chris Bauer); and Mitchell, a cable TV technician with unbounded trust in fortune cookie messages: "You will meet the girl of your dreams."

Against such optimism are the forces of quirky reality, all generated by actions of the characters: parking tickets, a clogged drain in a Chinese food/donut shop, TV disruption, a crushed auto fender, an obliterated dinner reservation that eventually results in cancellation of a Hawaiian vacation.

The film is funny: Olive getting drunk at a Chippendale performance, Johnston (Michael Hitchcock)as a customer service rep attempting to deal with an irate customer, the germ-obsessive Cyr (Brian Cox) facing a restaurant inspector, Dwight (Jamie Kennedy) reacting to his girlfriend's refusal to have children by writing hostile Chinese cookie fortunes: "Your girlfriend is lying to you" and the guy who falls asleep while manning a jackhammer because he spent the night looking for his girlfriend's missing cat.

A minor story with public cable access host (Darryl Theirse) and a local acting teacher reading from "The Boy in the Bubble" expresses the major theme: love comes from the heart.

"Bug" entertains on much the same level as "trains, planes and automobiles" but on a lower budget and with a fresher eye.