Don Jackson's best bad movie, transcendent, don't miss it
Don Jackson would never write scripts for his films and many were being made at the same time and he was also fired from several of them. His IMDb listing is by no means a complete list of all the films he was involved with. This film started out being a "my dinner with Andre" rip off but ended up being a Cool World rip off instead or as well. Lots of little animated, using the term very loosely, characters that appear to mutter obscene things to distract us or say things so far out of left field that they are actually in the right field of the adjacent ball park. Also in this is Julie Strain appearing to be sodomizing actor Niel Delama--a scene she later recalled once as being great. Well, no doubting her this time.
Also on hand to fascinate is former taxi star Jeff Conway slumming his way back into rehab clinic. This movie would drive God to use drugs. At least Bela Lugosi didn't live to know he was in Plan 9 from Outer Space.
But words can't really describe the strange awful power this film has. It's just a nonsensical explosion of off the wall ideas and dialog--probably much of it only half remembered or half improvised as the cameras rolled mercilessly on. Like an Andy Kaufman routine where the audience is insulted and bored into being amused and entertained it is this non-stop barrage or oddity that keeps this going.
It's hypnotic and defies what anyone would call a movie. Lots of Don's later movies did this but most are just unwatchable this one is transcendent. The level of imagination run wild here to try to make something out of a bunch of nothings. There nothing else quite like this movie, you'll probably have to watch it in bits and pieces over several days or your brain will explode. To understand Don Jackson this is the place to start. Fun fact towards the end of his life Jackson claimed to have formed his own religion, "the church of light" in an effort to be able to raise money as a church and have it be non taxable. He'd refer to conversations he had with people as being sermons. Did Jackson actually believe this himself or did he come to think of himself as a Christ like figure? Watching this film you won't find the answers but you'll realize that inside Jackson's head anything is possible.
Also on hand to fascinate is former taxi star Jeff Conway slumming his way back into rehab clinic. This movie would drive God to use drugs. At least Bela Lugosi didn't live to know he was in Plan 9 from Outer Space.
But words can't really describe the strange awful power this film has. It's just a nonsensical explosion of off the wall ideas and dialog--probably much of it only half remembered or half improvised as the cameras rolled mercilessly on. Like an Andy Kaufman routine where the audience is insulted and bored into being amused and entertained it is this non-stop barrage or oddity that keeps this going.
It's hypnotic and defies what anyone would call a movie. Lots of Don's later movies did this but most are just unwatchable this one is transcendent. The level of imagination run wild here to try to make something out of a bunch of nothings. There nothing else quite like this movie, you'll probably have to watch it in bits and pieces over several days or your brain will explode. To understand Don Jackson this is the place to start. Fun fact towards the end of his life Jackson claimed to have formed his own religion, "the church of light" in an effort to be able to raise money as a church and have it be non taxable. He'd refer to conversations he had with people as being sermons. Did Jackson actually believe this himself or did he come to think of himself as a Christ like figure? Watching this film you won't find the answers but you'll realize that inside Jackson's head anything is possible.
- HEFILM
- Feb 11, 2006