It's Crispin Glover

January 27, 2005 1:49 PM

What is it? It's Crispin Glover's feature film. (NSFW)
posted by mr.marx (35 comments total)

any mirrors? trailer is unavailable.
posted by pmbuko at 2:03 PM on January 27, 2005

Yeah, I can't view it either.

*shakes fist*
posted by The God Complex at 2:05 PM on January 27, 2005

Wow. That thing is finally being released? I saw him on a spoken word tour where he screened some of the film back in 1996 or 1997. Definitely not for everyone. I still talk about the dwarves and the snails.
posted by asianvikinggirl at 2:06 PM on January 27, 2005

I like the crispinglover tag but I'm reading it as Crisping Lover, so it must have something to do with deep fried carnal cannabilism.
posted by fenriq at 2:10 PM on January 27, 2005

I find his tendency to refer to himself as "Crispin Hellion Glover" really, really irritating.

I don't know why.
posted by ruddhist at 2:10 PM on January 27, 2005

For all of those who haven't seen it:
Glover on Letterman.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 2:13 PM on January 27, 2005

Aw, crap. Let's hope for a quick return.
posted by mr.marx at 2:14 PM on January 27, 2005

Whoa, that's not working anymore.
Try this one.
posted by dougunderscorenelso at 2:15 PM on January 27, 2005 [1 favorite]

Crispin Glover is the scariest man on the face of this or any Earth.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 2:16 PM on January 27, 2005

Man, I just assumed that this was released years ago and disappeared without me ever seeing it.

Although the tagline is one of the cinema's oldest cliches:
Being the adventures of a young man whose principle interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As tormented by an hubristic, racist inner psyche.. Didn't Frank Capra make that movie a dozen times already?!?
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 2:17 PM on January 27, 2005

The guy with leaves on his head, he looks like Corky from Life Goes On . . .
posted by ThePrawn at 2:21 PM on January 27, 2005

I'm strong!!!
posted by TetrisKid at 2:24 PM on January 27, 2005

What is it? - An essay conerning the subtext of the film by the same title
posted by mr.marx at 2:29 PM on January 27, 2005

Crispin Glover is a genius.

I saw him in a club once about 10 years ago. He was touring doing readings of books he'd modified by blacking out big sections of text to make new stories. There was one about a ratcatcher that has, for some reason, stuck with me.

He also screened The Orkly Kid which was brilliant.

It's a shame he's forced to bottom feed by playing character roles in movies like Charlie's Angels.
posted by felix betachat at 2:29 PM on January 27, 2005

He was touring doing readings of books he'd modified by blacking out big sections of text to make new stories.

A humument by another name?
posted by kenko at 2:34 PM on January 27, 2005

He was touring doing readings of books he'd modified by blacking out big sections of text to make new stories.

Ha, sounds like my project to highlight words in one of those supermarket inspirational books I got for christmas to make the passages pornographic.
posted by TheGoldenOne at 2:37 PM on January 27, 2005

I'm experiencing a bit of Crispin Glover synchronicity. I stumbled across that Letterman clip yesterday, a couple days after I gave his album another listen, and now this. I think it's time I went out and bought Willard.
posted by JT at 2:39 PM on January 27, 2005

Ah. It's still for sale...
posted by felix betachat at 2:39 PM on January 27, 2005

Beaver Trilogy maybe? So he's the guy doing the very fine sadistic rendition of "These Boots Are Made For Walking".
posted by oh posey at 2:44 PM on January 27, 2005

If you liked RAT CATCHING you should check out some other treated novels (blacking out and/or covering parts of text of one preprinted page to create a new story) like Tom Phillips' ongoing experiment A Humument.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 2:48 PM on January 27, 2005

-- Try this one.

Locked my machine up when playing via WMP. Be very afraid
posted by pixelgeek at 3:02 PM on January 27, 2005

He did have a pretty good spoken word tour, strange how he sorta disappeared from film between '95 and 2000, with just a small role in the Larry Flint biopic.

I saw the trailer on some site a while ago, looks awesome. I was expecting something a little more Dogme 95-esque like "Even Dwarves Started Small" (which he cites as inspiration) or something.
posted by bobo123 at 3:30 PM on January 27, 2005

I love Crispin, not always because he is brilliant, but rather because he's always interesting in a deranged kind of way.

One thing I found out awhile back that really interested me, though, was who Crispin's father way.

Do you remember the villians in the James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever"? Mr. Kidd and Mr. Wint?
They held hands and skipped around, merrily killing everyone in their path.

Crispin's dad Bruce played Mr. Wint -- a scrambled version of twin.

They were the first gay killers in cinema, as far as I am aware...

Mr. Kidd:"I must say, Miss Case is quite lovely..."
[Mr. Wint glares at him]
Mr. Kidd: " ...For a woman."

Add in Charles Gray as Blofeld, and you've got what is easily the most kitsch, homoerotic Bond movie ever.
posted by insomnia_lj at 3:48 PM on January 27, 2005

Holy Humument, Kenko! I don't know if you were referring to i t in praise or not, but you took the words right out of my mouth. I'm a fan of the book/thing.

[threadjack]

A Humument, for those unaware of it.

[/threadjack]

I suspect that glover's version didn't involve painting pictures on the pages and that the story may in fact still have followed a kind of easily discernible narrative. Although that's not really a safe assumption with him.
posted by shmegegge at 4:19 PM on January 27, 2005

I didn't realize Crispin was such a wacko. I thought he was in some kind of semi-retirement after "Back to the Future".

He was in a movie with Keanu Reaves and Dennis Hopper. "The Rivers Edge"? I don't remember, but I loved it at the time. He was a really good overzealous tweaker.
posted by snsranch at 4:19 PM on January 27, 2005

He was on the Late Late Show saying he used the money from "Charlie's Angels" to finish this film.

I too think he is a genius. I recall an interview he did for Spin magazine where he gave out his home phone number, hehe.
posted by First Post at 4:52 PM on January 27, 2005

I might try to see it at Sundance this evening. I'll report back if I get in.
posted by fungible at 5:37 PM on January 27, 2005

I've been a fan of Glover's since River's Edge (mentioned upthread). I actually saw the infamous Letterman appearance when it happened, and thought he was kind of sad and desperate, which he may well be. He was the perfect Andy Warhol for The Doors, which was the 2nd time I ever saw him. I also liked him as "Jingle Dell" in David Lynch's Wild At Heart.

What sold me on Glover as an actor was the failed Lynch pilot (for HBO) called Hotel Room... his segment of that reduced me to tears the first time I saw it, and it was also the first time I ever saw him not playing a weirdo... in this case, he was a husband with a mentally ill wife, whom he was desperately trying to prop up. It was phenomenal.
posted by BoringPostcards at 6:38 PM on January 27, 2005

It's showing at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Austin, soon, (the wonderful theater with beer and food) with Crispin showing some of his other work the same night, 'live in person'.
posted by Espoo2 at 7:33 PM on January 27, 2005

River's Edge was indeed a fine movie.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:45 PM on January 27, 2005

The funniest part of Crispin on Letterman was how they immediately took a commercial break and when they returned he wasn't there anymore.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:18 AM on January 28, 2005

My first computer-ish job was in Austin about 10 years ago working for a mail order outfit that sold various Apple Mac stuff. On my first week on the job this one particular customer had purchased a VideoVision Studio (one of the first digital video cards you could get) for his 8100. He asked me a question that I was too new to know the answer to, so I told him I'd research it and give him a call back. He seemed pleased I was willing to help him, so when he gave me his name and number I was stunned to discover it was Crispin Glover. I said "THE Crispin Glover? Man, I saw you kick David Letterman in the face when I was in high school!!!" and he nervously chuckled and said "oh...".

Anyway I studied up on the all the info he asked me, and we got along so well for a few months I became his personal Mac/Video tech support monkey. There I'd be selling away, and a Crispin call would make me drop everything to help him set up his video system. When I was away from my desk or out 'sick' he'd leave voice mails and they always sounded like he was about to cry: "Um.. Ernie?!?, Yeah, Im having a bit of trouble with this Syquest, please give a call back at 213-xxx-xxxx, its a different phone than before, but let the machine answer and just yell for me, OK!?!" It was so surreal to be sitting at a party in west campus, and the host would drag out a speakerphone for me to play my Crispin voicemails to the delight of my friends.

Anyway, I heard this movie took him 10 years to make, so I can't help but think that he edited it on the gear I set him up with all those years ago. (and if he's still using a VV on an 8100, its easy to understand why it took him 10 years to cut!!!)
posted by ernie at 8:33 AM on January 28, 2005

"Dude, I saw it right there in front of me. I touched it with a stick." --Layne (River's Edge)
posted by badger_flammable at 8:36 AM on January 28, 2005

Saw it last night at Sundance. Can't believe I got in - I was number 73 on the wait list, but you never know till you try, right?

So if you've seen the trailer, you get the gist of it. Surrealist epic, big credit titles, all actors with Down's syndrome or cerebral palsy, naked chicks with elephant heads, and snails, snails, snails. The surprising thing about it was that it actually had a story arc (Crispin plays the bad guy, a DS kid plays the hero) and that in parts it was really funny. Intentionally. Fairuza Balk as a screaming snail was hilarious.

Crispin was there to answer questions, and he seemed pretty earnest. When asked about all the snail killing in the film, he said, "I was fascinated by putting salt on snails as a kid, and although I didn't like killing them in the film, I thought it really added something visceral. And it is legal, after all."

Now he's apparently working on the sequel, "Everything Is Fine" and the third sequel, "It Is Mine" which are teased at the end of "What is it?"
posted by fungible at 10:14 AM on January 28, 2005

that's awesome. thanks, fungible!

damn I wish I hadn't posted this while the trailer was off-line.
sorry, everybody.
but please bookmark the website, you WANT to see this trailer...I think
posted by mr.marx at 11:49 AM on January 28, 2005