| Movie Review of "Crumb" I trucked off last night in the dark to catch this movie �Crumb�, which is actually a 1994 film, but is being shown on two late nights this week to tie in with the current screening of �Ghost World�. The two movies share the same director, Terry Zwigoff, and they both do have some similarities in undertone. Anyway, I�m not about to recap what the documentary-film was about, so I�ll lift this off my cinema programme. Bear in mind, though, that this programme is the sole handiwork of the cinema itself, and so they are likely to promote each and every film. Hell, they called �Jeepers Creepers� a �chiller-thriller for horror fans which has cult hit written all over it�. I believe they missed out the letter �s� after the word �cult�, but I have not and will not be spending good money to pan �Jeepers Creepers�, so let�s pick up the �Crumb� here. �Crumb� is an �outstanding documentary about legendary underground artist Robert Crumb, best known as the creator of Fritz the Cat and the ubiquitous �Keep On Trucking� pop artwork. Filmed over six years by Terry Zwigoff, a longtime friend of Crumb, it is a remarkable, funny and often disturbing portrait of the artist and a harrowing story of a damaged family. Intercutting interviews with extensive footage of Crumb�s work, Zwigoff creates a riveting picture of the artist�s obsessions and of the painfully honest, powerful visions he has created with them�. Screw that. It�s too much of a blatant �you must come and see this movie� description. I mean, the movie was interesting in the sense that you realise these are real people being portrayed in the documentary, but it didn�t stop me from feeling bored. I was initially led to believe that this was because I had not had much sleep the previous night or that my contact lenses were drying up fast, but no, looking back, there was more to that. See, the thing is, most movies that are character-driven tend to build some sort of feeling toward the protagonist. In Hollywood, they tend to be sympathetic towards the hero(ine), in indie film they sometimes take rare chances and channel hate. But here. I don�t know how Zwigoff allegedly spent six years tracking Crumb�s life and came up with something like this. Sure, it�s compelling in some parts, it�s darkly depressing in others, and comicly funny in some, but nothing is actually done to endear the viewer to Crumb. Maybe it�s me and my hardened heart, but at the end of it, I could not give a horse�s scrotum what happened to Crumb. (And no, he did not die, and the butler did not do it.) Robert Crumb is an interesting person, but Zwigoff wanted to use Crumb to caricature society, to send a message about what kind of people we have become. It juxtaposes Crumb with the rest of society and how he�s totally screwball, but seems the most sane among his entire family. It makes for an interesting film, sure, but somewhere along the line, it just got me not caring whichever way what happened. I�m not well-versed in movie terminology and how things should work, and will not ever claim to be, but I just write from the viewer�s POV. And this viewer just stopped caring. It�s like what I imagine would be an old computer game where you run from one hot potato to another with your cotton mitt, trying to stop it from touching the ground. In the end, it just leaves you hungry. The comics are good though. I say, shunt the whole thing so that the juxtaposition between Crumb and the society he caricatures in his comics become the focus. Abandon the family. I don�t care what his ex-girlfriend says about the size of a certain appendage of his (this indeed did happen in the movie, I�m not making this up); but it will be interesting to see what society�s backlash is against certain racist and sexist stereotypes Crumb portrays in his comics, and what this backlash says about society itself. Zwigoff barely skims the surface on this. If society can read a comic that allegedly �crosses the line� between being funny and offensive (think racist caricature for an example), and yet still laugh, what does it say about them? Is Crumb the villain for portraying it so, or is he merely a conduit? R.D.�s rating : R.D. wishes there were more �crumb�s to feed the poor PUPPY DAWG. (What�s a �puppy dawg�? Check out R.D.�s rating system here.) |