I Married a Strange Person!

I feel sorry for the people that said they were bored during this movie and that was the only thing they had to say about it. This movie was a wonderful fantasy in which Plympton used the animated media to its highest potential. This movie does have something to offend just about everyone, from extreme profanity, extreme violence, to bizarre (but funny) sex scenes to quoting Hermann Goring?? The bird sex scene in the opening probably did a good job offending most of the population and let you know there was a really raunchy good time ahead; the facial expressions were great! Another great part to look for is when one character watches the "How To Make Love To A Woman" video. There was one segment I rewound the tape three times and STILL couldn't hear what was said because I was laughing SO HARD! WONderful movie and such an improvement over "The Tune".

Bill Plympton's feature-length cartoon is about how Our Hero gets a boil in his neck that permits him to change things into other things. Because he is newly married, this upsets his bride (even though the sex is great), and she rushes home to her parents. Meanwhile, the CEO of minor TV network Smilecorp hears of this ability and orders its military division to seize the person, or at least the boil, using all sorts of armaments.

At this point, the story, such as it is, loses any sign of coherence; with the ability to change anything into anything else, how can it be otherwise? Still, there are some fine Plympton gag sequences, and the animation is a little fuller than it usually is for his work; apparently he got more money for this production than usual.

None of which serves to make it a great cartoon. Although the gimmick suits Plympton's wild sensibilities, the open-ended nature of it seems to have overwhelmed the film maker.

Plympton is a genius and his film has more imagination than a hundred Hollywood film combined. Nevertheless, this film is a hard one to stick with. Even at an hour and 13 minutes, it feels long.

My objections are not the ones you might expect. I was totally open to Plympton's original and surreal take on life. I wasn't offended at all by the gross or sexual stuff. For the first fifteen minutes or so, Plympton's "anything goes" style of animation is both hilarious and thrilling. Inanimate objects come to life. Bizarre "what if" notions are suddenly played out for us in vivid color. We've entered a new universe.

The first half is very promising. I loved the scene of the main character having a tension filled dinner with his wife and her parents. (The in-law's house includes a framed photo of the young couple, with the son-in-law's image cut out!) These scenes show great promise of a man wrestling with the anxieties most new husband wrestle with (sex, in-laws, life in the 'burbs, balancing a demanding job with a wife who wants attention.) Sadly, the wife and these other elements are almost immediately swept aside so that we can have a series of belabored battles between our hero and the military-entertainment complex. These battles take up the entire second half of the story, and always end in a stalemate.

Plympton's universe, where the laws of physics don't apply and anything can and will happen, is ultimately a mixed blessing. At first, the freedom is funny and liberating. You don't know what's going to happen next. But after half an hour or so, it becomes repetitive and dull. If anything can happen, and no actions have any consequence, then why do we care? Nothing really matters here. Nothing is at stake. No one seems to want anything or care about anything. It's so unreal it ceases to be relevant. Our interest wanes. As cool as Plympton is (and he is cool), at some point the novelty wears off, and when it does, there's nothing to come in and fill the gap (The experience is kind of like that of watching an adult film.)

In the end, IMASP is about nothing but its own cleverness. I hope that for his next project, Plympton will put his considerable talents to work in a good story with strong characters. good story with stron

After newlywed businessman Grant Boyer is electrocuted by his satelite dish, he develops a strange lump on the back of his neck that gives him the power to bring his crazy thoughts and fantasies into reality. Of course, since this is a Plympton film, you can safely assume that this is merely an excuse to load the movie with lots of blood, sex, talking animals, bulging eyeballs, and more detached limbs than you can count. While extremely imaginative, well-animated, and generally fun to watch, the film runs its course within the first half-hour or so. Plympton is an amazing artist, but his art is best viewed in short-film form.

I've been a fan of Bill Plympton since I first saw one of his shorts in a late-80s animation festival, and to me, "I Married a Strange Person!" is his best work. It's possible that I've missed something better -- I've seen many/most of his shorts, but only one other of his long-form works, "The Tune". This film, to me, is much funnier and more memorable than "The Tune", though not as deep, I suppose.

Fans of the "splatstick" horror/comedy genre should enjoy this film, as it uses over-the-top gore to similar comedic effect. Don't get the impression that this is a film in the vein of "Lupo The Butcher" or something, though, with ultra-violence being used for ultra-violence's sake. Plympton's imagination is FAR too vivid for that to be the case.

I'd have to say, in fact, that Plympton has the most unique and active imagination of any visual artist I'm familiar with, and this film is a great showcase for it, since the plot concerns a special brain lobe that causes imagination to become reality.

Apart from the comedic gore, there are hilarious looks at sex. What Plympton has done for quitting smoking and other topics in his shorts, he does here for sex. Everything from people to animals to inanimate objects are seen engaging in the act here, to comic effect. One of the most imaginative images is the upper receptacle in an electrical outlet banging the lower receptacle from behind (with the three-prong receptacles having become faces).

Another thing to mention is the film's great score. Funny, catchy, toe-tapping tunes that you'll feel like you've heard somewhere before.

To sum up, buy this film! If you're at all a fan of animation or semi-risque comedy, you're sure to love it.