Monster in a Box

Jerry Seinfeld has nothing on Spalding Gray. This is one of the more unusual 90 minutes you will spend, as Gray discusses the trials and tribulations of writing a screenplay.

The entire movies shows Gray sitting at a desk, looking straight ahead. He deals with personal and professional relationships, religious and ethical beliefs; and yet somehow manages to hold your attention.

Not for everyone, but you can actually watch it in parts, or even flick back and forth if it's on TV. The snippets of Gray's life sometimes seem real, sometimes unbelievable, but always give a feeling of truly looking into another person's soul.

in his descriptions of CAA, platinum card lunches in Hollywood, psychoanalysis, a vacation in Provincetown he never took, and free trips to Nicaragua, financed by Columbia pictures.

It sounds narcissistic, but Spalding Gray (possibly because of his unusual personality) ropes the audience in, laughs at himself (perhaps because he did not take the Hollywood thing oh-so-seriously) and gets us to care.

This monologue is not just about "The Killing Fields", or "Swimming to Cambodia"; it is more a pastiche of events, as he sees them. Some of the lines are classic, as when Gray meets with the esteemed talent agents at CAA. The conference table is ..."full of them, tanned, healthy, fresh from drinking blue-green algae from an Oregon lake...there are no drugs now in Hollywood".

This was before the tragedy occurred. Many of us will miss his off-balance humor. 9/10.

It isn't a movie but a monologue performance on film and a really good monologuist performance by Spaulding Gray. Anecdotes embellished for storytelling are patterned to fit in with flashbacks to the "Impossible Vacation" that sits atop the desk.

Gray theatrically converses with the audience and other viewers of the performance, at times with the minimalist-synthesized score by Laurie Anderson to accentuate the mood. You will feel both the attempt for Gray to come full circle and the subtle depression Gray exudes through his retrospections well into the performance.

Anyone who has lost someone close to mental illness or has lived a life like that of Spaulding Gray will empathize as they watch this series of strange adventures into writing, acting, relationships, society, and the simile of personal solitude to self-realization whenever experiences unexpected encounters through one's own ambling.

Gray can make the English language jump through hoops like none other. He recounts a number of events, tied together by his writing of a manuscript (the "Monster" of the title), some sad, some uproariously funny, all in his characteristic, sarcastic manner. If you liked "Swimming to Cambodia" you will love this one. I actually thought this was a bit more interesting and better told than "Swimming to Cambodia". A real masterpiece.

What was I thinking? Who, other than a close relative, would give 10 stars to this horse-manure? The guy is not even funny once. He exudes a sense of entitlement as "a witty guy," but turns out to be a bag of wind. Worse than Dinner With Andre, though I didn't think that would ever be possible. My despair for humanity would now be unendurable but for the one thing that keeps me going when all else fails: the FFWD button.