Crispin Glover Movies
Both onscreen and off, Crispin Glover earned notoriety as one of the most infamous oddballs in Hollywood, garnering vast critical acclaim for his bizarre character turns and intense performances. Crispin Hellion Glover was born September 20, 1964, in New York City. After his family's late-'60s relocation to Los Angeles, he began acting while still in elementary school, and by the age of 13 had already secured professional representation. After winning a lead role in an L.A. production of The Sound of Music starring Florence Henderson, Glover graduated high school and began working regularly in television, appearing in guest roles on series like Happy Days, Hill Street Blues, and Family Ties. In 1981, he made his feature debut in the teen sex romp Private Lessons, and in 1983 appeared in My Tutor as well as a pair of TV movies, High School U.S.A. and The Kid With the 200 I.Q.Supporting roles in projects like 1984's Teachers, Racing With the Moon, and the American Film Institute-produced The Orkly Kid followed, but a highly idiosyncratic performance as Michael J. Fox's father in the 1985 blockbuster Back to the Future was Glover's ticket to stardom. In 1986, he delivered a brilliant performance in the disturbing teen drama River's Edge, but in the wake of its release he began to earn a notorious reputation for eccentric behavior: A July 1987 appearance on NBC's Late Night With David Letterman in which Glover -- clad in a ratty wig and platform shoes -- attempted to kick the program host in the head was the stuff of tabloid headlines, and the concurrent publication of Rat Catching, an antique Victorian children's book updated with gruesome cut-up text and new drawings distributed through his mother's Volcanic Eruptions press imprint, did little to dispel questions about his sanity.
In 1989, Glover issued an LP, The Big Problem Does Not Equal the Solution. The Solution Equals Let It Be, containing a bizarro-world cover of the Nancy Sinatra hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." A follow-up, The Big Love Album, remains unreleased. That same year, he shocked onlookers by refusing to return for the inevitable Back to the Future sequel. When another actor was outfitted with prosthetics as a substitute, Glover successfully sued 20th Century Fox, a legal victory which forced the Screen Actor's Guild to create new rules on the issue of performance "sampling." He then turned his back on the Hollywood mainstream, accepting supporting roles in off-kilter films like David Lynch's Wild at Heart and Lasse Hallstrom's What's Eating Gilbert Grape? In 1991, he even appeared as Andy Warhol in Oliver Stone's The Doors.
By the mid-'90s, Glover had settled rather comfortably into his role as Hollywood's eccentric-at-large, appearing with some of the American independent community's most notable filmmakers. In 1993, he appeared in Gus Van Sant's Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, and in 1996 he delivered a memorable cameo in the opening scenes of Jim Jarmusch's masterful Dead Man. In 1995, Glover began directing his own film, What Is It?, starring a cast made up entirely of victims of Down's Syndrome. He also mounted The Big Slide Show, a traveling one-man performance-art piece incorporating footage from What Is It?, music from his records, and images from his books, which additionally included 1990's Oak Mot and 1992's Concrete Inspection.
Though still a mainstay of smaller-minded independent films in the year 2000, Glover made a dramatic return to the Hollywood cotton candy blockbuster that year by gleefully sinking his teeth into his role as the creepy Thin Man in Charlie's Angels. Boiling over with a silent psychotic glee and displaying remarkable heretofore unseen dexterity (save for the aforementioned Letterman fiasco), Glover's Thin Man was a highlight of the film's action sequences and took his patented dementia to new heights. The following year found Glover in a rare starring role in Bartleby, a surreal adaptation of Herman Melleville's Bartleby the Scrivener. The same year also found the wide release of Glover's little-seen pre-Rubin and Ed collaboration with director Trent Harris, The Orkley Kid, a short that was included in Harris' The Beaver Kid. When a remake of the 1971 horror classic Willard was announced in 2002 and Glover was tipped to star, few could deny that his casting in the role was a stroke of genius. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
A group of high school pals reunite at an old ski lodge party spot after years of being apart and find that the hot tub has magical time travel powers which teleport them to 1987. John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke star in the MGM comedy, with Steve Pink directing from a script by Josh Heald. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
- 2008
- Add Freezer Burn: The Invasion of Laxdale to QueueAdd Freezer Burn: The Invasion of Laxdale to top of Queue
The hottest summer on record turns downright chilly when some unexplainable crop circles appear in a local field, and representatives from a mysterious foreign oil company turn up hoping to buy the local grain elevator in this comedy starring Tom Green and Crispin Glover. As night falls over Laxdale, a series of strange events culminate in the discovery of some elaborate crop circles on a local farm. Before the locals have a chance to try and make sense of all the strangeness, Petrocon General Manager Veirgacht (Glover) appears in town and announces plans to purchase the local grain elevator. This plan doesn't sit well with former NHL player Bill Swanson (Green), because should Veirgacht succeed in convincing the locals to let Petrocon start searching for oil, Bill will be out of work. Later, Bill finds his old minor league hockey coach Arnie locked in his house and dying from hypothermia. Arnie claims that the only thing protecting him from some mysterious invaders is the cold, but promptly freezes to death before giving Bill any concrete information about who "they" are or why "they've" come to Laxdale. Now convinced of foul play, Bill enlists the aid of local barmaid Gina Larson in getting to the bottom of this extraterrestrial mystery. When local gear-heads Randy and Dwayne spontaneously combust during a joyride down a country road, the time finally comes to uncover Veirgacht's true intentions. Upon discovering that Petrocon is actually an "off world" time-share company intent on transforming the Earth into a lavish resort for extraterrestrials, Bill and Gina team up to find the aliens' Achilles heel and save the entire human race from being enslaved as cabana boys and chambermaids. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Green, Crispin Glover, (more)
A mysterious magician has some very unpleasant secrets in this gory tale of terror. Edmund Bigelow (Kip Pardue) is the publisher of Cacophony Gazette, a journal that covers the cutting edge of art and performance in California. Jaded Bigelow thinks he's seen it all until he and his girlfriend Maggie (Bijou Phillips) take in a show by Montag the Magician (Crispin Glover), who with the help of his sidekick the Geek (Jeffrey Combs) delivers a stomach-turning show in which he brings volunteers on stage and dismembers them, only to have his victims stagger off stage at the end of the show, shaken but still very much alive. Bigelow soon becomes obsessed with Montag's show and wants to know more about him and his illusions, but he suspects that there might be more to the magician's show than he imagined when maimed bodies start appearing all over L.A., and with the help of his pals Jinky (Joshua Miller) and Dr. Chong (Brad Dourif) they discover the bizarre secret behind Montag's hold over his audience. Based on a cult-favorite gore film from Hershel Gordon Lewis, The Wizard of Gore also features several members of the contemporary burlesque troupe the Suicide Girls as Montag's volunteers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kip Pardue, Bijou Phillips, (more)
- 2007
Director Crispin Glover teams with screenwriter Steven C. Stewart for this surreal, semi-autobiographical feature detailing cerebral palsy-sufferer Stewart's remarkable life and many love affairs. A semi-sequel to Glover's shocking directorial debut What Is It? (2005), It's Fine! Everything Is Fine opens with Stewart lying helplessly on the hospital floor. As he is being transported back to his bed, Stewart embarks on an inward journey in which his suave charm proves irresistable to the ladies. Though his imaginary sexual conquests allow Stewart a welcomed opportunity to live out his many erotic fantasies, the unshakable frustration of being an eternal outcast soon causes his actions to take an unexpectedly dark turn. It's Fine! Everything Is Fine made its world premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven C. Stewart, Margit Carstensen, (more)
Based on a novel by Bruce Craven, this road picture follows a dope fiend named Rick (Jake Busey), who believes his goal in life is to track down Ginger (Jennifer Tilly), a famous porn star who is currently staying in her Beverly Hills hideaway. Rick is obsessed with Ginger, watches her movies obsessively, and deals drugs on the side, all to the chagrin of his lover, Tamara (Natasha Lyonne). He decides to seek out Ginger via the road, and along the way picks up Jules (Crispin Glover), a neurotic, virginal type. On the way to meet Ginger, he finds an unwelcome surprise in the form of Ginger's very jealous husband (Eric Roberts). Fast Sofa also features Bijou Phillips and Adam Goldberg in small supporting roles. ~ Jason Clark, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jake Busey, Crispin Glover, (more)
Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener gets a slightly surreal update in this offbeat comedy drama. The manager (David Paymer) of the city records department in a mid-sized California community decides that his staff of three -- flirty chatterbox Vivian (Glenne Headly), sloppy Vietnam vet Ernie (Maury Chaykin), and slick-suited, Don Juan wannabe Rocky (Joe Piscopo) -- could use some help, so he places an ad looking for a new employee. The boss ends up hiring the one and only applicant who wants the position, a quiet, pale young man named Bartleby (Crispin Glover). At first, Bartleby is a model of efficiency, but before long he loses enthusiasm for his job, much to the annoyance of his co-workers, and soon he's spending his days staring at an air conditioning vent. The Boss asks Bartleby to get back to work, but Bartleby's repeated reply to such requests is, "I prefer not to," and the Boss sees little recourse but to fire him. However, Bartleby refuses to leave his desk, and it soon becomes obvious that Bartleby has not only stopped doing his work -- he's stopped going home and has moved into the office. Bartleby was the first feature film for producer/director Jonathan Parker; he also wrote the screenplay, in collaboration with Catherine Di Napoli. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Paymer, Crispin Glover, (more)
- 2001
In 1979, while working as a cameraman for a local news program in Salt Lake City, Trent Harris made the acquaintance of a genial but eccentric entertainer from the nearby town of Beaver, UT, who called himself Groovin' Gary. Harris' experiences with Groovin' Gary inspired three different short subjects, and The Beaver Trilogy collects Harris' three Groovin' Gary films into one feature presentation. In 1979's The Beaver Kid, viewers are introduced to Groovin' Gary, the self-proclaimed "Rich Little of Beaver," as he shows off his car (named after Farrah Fawcett), does impressions, and plugs a talent show in which he'll be appearing. Gary's act turns out to be a full-drag (and painfully sincere) impersonation of Olivia Newton-John performing "Please Don't Keep Me Waitin'." Two years later, Harris made The Beaver Kid 2, essentially a satiric recreation of the first film, with Sean Penn (who had then only recently scored his first film role) playing Groovin' Larry (the real Gary had since chosen to distance himself from Harris and his documentary). Finally, 1985's The Orkly Kid features Crispin Glover (who later starred in Harris' Rubin and Ed) as Larry, an aspiring comic and entertainer from Orkly, IA, who bears a certain resemblance to Groovin' Gary. Larry feels he has a gift and a message he wants to share with the world, but his fellow citizens of Orkly aren't so sure they're ready for Larry's Olivia Newton-John tribute, eventually leading Larry to move on to the big city in hopes of making his dreams come true. Both The Beaver Kid and The Beaver Kid 2 were produced on color video (the latter on a reported budget of only one hundred bucks), while The Orkly Kid was filmed in 16 mm, with the support of the American Film Institute; the three shorts were transferred to 35 mm film for their release as The Beaver Trilogy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Crispin Glover, (more)
- 1993
Hotel Room is a made-for-cable anthology, featuring three separate stories that are all set in the same New York hotel room over different years. Set in 1992, the first, "Getting Rid of Robert," features three girlfriends who devise a plan to help Sasha dump her sleazy movie executive boyfriend. The second, set in 1969, is called "Tricks" and is about a dull, junkie prostitute Darlene, her client Moe and the sudden re-appearance of Moe's friend Lou. "Blackout," the last story, is set in 1936 and is about a young husband who is attempting to accept the madness of his gorgeous wife. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Joey (Crispin Glover) thinks he's a writer, even though he's never written (or published) anything. He has advertised this "fact" to everyone he knows, but particularly to himself. He has an acquaintance, Marty (Matthew Hutton), who is mute but who writes like a dream. Of course, people try to ignore him the way they do every other "handicapped" person, and his writings go unnoticed. One day, Joey runs into a literary agent and hands him some of Marty's poetry. When the agent assumes that the work is Joey's, he allows him to believe that. Incredibly, (since poetry is not a big publishing moneymaker), the agent hands Joey some money as an advance on a book. Unable and unwilling to end his deception, Joey accepts the cash. Sooner or later, Joey is going to have to get hold of some more poems, though, and he may even have to face the truth about what he has done. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Steven Schub, (more)
- 1989
Things have barely settled from the excitement and resolve of the original Back to the Future, when in pops that crazy inventor Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) with news that in order to prevent a series of events that could ruin the McFly name for posterity, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox ) and his girlfriend are whisked into the future to the year 2015, where Marty must tangle with a teen rogue named Griff, who's obviously the descendant of Biff, the first Future film's bully. Marty foils Griff and his group when he jumps on an air-foil skateboard that flies him through town at rakish speeds with the loser bullies beaten again. Marty gets a money-making brainstorm before hopping in the time-traveling DeLorean, and he purchases a sports almanac. He figures that back in 1985 he'll be able to place sure-fire bets using the published sports scores of the games that are yet to happen. Unfortunately for Marty, Dr. Brown disapproves of his betting scheme -- he feels too much messing with time is very dangerous -- and he tosses the almanac. A hidden Biff overhears the discussion about the almanac, sees it get tossed out, and grabs it. Thus begins a time-traveling swirl to make the head spin. Biff swipes the DeLorean, heads back to 1955, and with the help of the unerring almanac, bets his way to power. The now-altered "Biff world" has turned into a nightmarish scene with Biff the mogul, residing in a Vegas-styled pleasure palace and running everything. It's all our hero Marty can do to pull the pieces together this time, as he must jump between three generations of intertwined time travel. The end of Back to the Future, Part 2 introduces its sequel as the zany professor has already time-dashed away to the Wild West of the late 1800s and invites Marty into a new adventure. ~ All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, (more)
Michael J. Fox is among the young sitcom stars enlisted for this made-for-TV teen film, about a battle between the rich, popular kids and their average counterparts. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, Nancy McKeon, (more)
Just how far will some guys go to pay off a debt? Frank (Jason Lee) and Eddie (Crispin Glover) are a pair of inept would-be wise guys trying to scare up enough money to get out of the small Texas town they call home. They think their ship may have come in when Spider (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a local crime boss, offers them a big payday to drive a truck full of bootlegged cigarettes into Mexico. Frank and Eddie jump at the chance, but soon discover they're been made patsies in a scam when the truck turns out to have been booby-trapped, and by the end of the day they owe Spider a quarter-million dollars. Desperate to raise the cash, Eddie, a part-time gravedigger, hears that an exotic dancer with a rich sugar daddy has recently died, and was buried wearing a valuable diamond necklace. Frank and Eddie then hatch an elaborate scheme to exhume the stripper, swipe the necklace, and hold her remains for ransom. Drop Dead Sexy was the first directorial credit for writer and producer Michael Philip. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Jason Lee, (more)
- 2006
- R
Danger comes in pairs in this gruesome horror story. Kate (Margo Harshman), Zack (Greg Cipes), Ashley (Kelly Vitz), Riff (Artie Baxter) and Vicky (Carrie Finklea) are five college students who are heading out together for a spring break camping trip. Hoping to add some excitement to the proceedings, they set up camp at the Heathers, a remote wooded location where a notorious murder took place years before. Legend has it a young boy killed his parents and beat his twin brother into a state of severe brain damage in the Heathers, but the students, attracted to the spooky ambience, don't imagine any real danger still lurks in the forest. En route, the kids stop for supplies at a ramshackle general store, where they meet Stanley (Crispin Glover), an eccentric shopkeeper with a mentally feeble brother, Simon (also played by Glover). What they kids don't realize until it's too late is that Stanley is the murderous youngster of legend, and with the help of Simon, he's still in the business of murdering strangers when the opportunity presents itself. Simon Says also stars Bruce Glover (Crispin's father), Lori Lynn Lively and Erica Hubbard. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover
After two acclaimed independent films in which he took a troubling look at male/female relations, director Neil LaBute moves on to less controversial ground in this dark comedy. Betty Sizemore (Renee Zellweger) is a woman from Kansas City who waits tables at a diner and is married to an insensitive thug named Del (Aaron Eckhart). One of Betty's few pleasures in life is the soap opera A Reason to Love. Her favorite character is handsome Dr. David Ravell, played by George McCord (Greg Kinnear). One night, Del gets involved in a drug deal with a pair of gangsters, Charlie (Morgan Freeman) and his sidekick Wesley (Chris Rock). Del's thoughtless racial slurs lead to an arguement, and the short-tempered Wesley attacks him; Charlie is forced to kill Del, as Betty watches. Dazed and in shock, Betty hops into her car, deciding that the time is right for a date with destiny. Betty tracks down George McCord, and soon the soap's producer Lyla (Allison Janney) is considering Betty for a part on A Reason to Love, not realizing that Betty doesn't want to play Dr. Ravell's nurse and fiance, she wants to be her. Betty, meanwhile, has no idea that the drugs that Del was trying to sell are still in her car, and that Charlie and Wesley are hot on her trail, determined to get the dope and silence her once and for all. Nurse Betty also features Kathleen Wilhoite, Crispin Glover, and Pruitt Taylor Vince. The film was shown in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the prize for Best Screenplay. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Renée Zellweger, Morgan Freeman, (more)
"If the First Amendment will protect a scumbag like me, then it'll protect all of you -- 'cause I'm the worst," declares Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt (as played by Woody Harrelson) in the midst of one of his many court cases. Milos Forman's film follows Flynt from his childhood in Kentucky, where he made extra money for his dirt-poor family by selling the moonshine his father brewed, into adulthood as he manages a strip club in Cincinnati. While the club does middling business, the experience changes Flynt's life in two ways: he meets Althea (Courtney Love), an exotic dancer who becomes the love of his life, and he gets the bright idea of starting a magazine to promote the club. Marketed as a crasser, less pretentious alternative to Playboy or Penthouse, Hustler becomes a huge success after Flynt runs a photo series of Jacqueline Onassis sunbathing nude. However, while plenty of people are buying Hustler, there are also plenty of people who don't care for it, including Charles Keating (James Cromwell), leader of a watchdog group called Citizens For Decent Literature. Keating spearheads the first of many legal attacks on the magazine, one of which reaches the Supreme Court as Alan Isaacman (Edward Norton), Flynt's lawyer, debates the finer legal points of bad taste with the justices of the highest court in the land. Meanwhile, Flynt makes a fortune, loses the use of his legs after an attack by a sniper, embraces and than abandons Christianity, and eventually loses Althea, who succumbs to AIDS after a long addiction to drugs. Woody Harrelson's brother Brett Harrelson is well cast as Larry Flynt's brother Jimmy; Larry Flynt appears briefly as a judge who hands down a judgment against Larry Flynt. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, (more)
A dark, bitter commentary on modern American life cloaked in the form of a surrealist western, Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man stars Johnny Depp as William Blake, a newly-orphaned accountant who leaves his home in Cleveland to accept a job in the frontier town of Machine. Upon his arrival, Blake is told by the factory owner Dickinson (Robert Mitchum) that the job has already been filled. Dejectedly, he enters a nearby tavern, ultimately spending the night with a former prostitute. A violent altercation with the woman's lover (Gabriel Byrne), also Dickinson's son, leaves Blake a murderer as well as mortally wounded, a bullet lodged dangerously close to his heart. He flees into the wilderness, where a Native American named Nobody (Gary Farmer) mistakes Blake for the English poet William Blake and determines that he will be Blake's guide in his protracted passage into the spirit world. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, (more)
Writer/director Gus Van Sant's early bid for big-time commercial success -- a success he didn't manage to achieve until Good Will Hunting -- is based on Tom Robbins' 1976 feminist bestseller. Uma Thurman plays Sissy Hankshaw, a woman born with very large thumbs. After her parents (Grace Zabriskie and Ken Kesey) take her to a doctor (Buck Henry), who offers her parents no remedy for their daughter's condition, the film races ahead to the 1970s. Sissy is now a popular feminine hygiene spray model for a product called Yoni Yum, the product of a company owned by The Countess (John Hurt in drag). Sissy travels to the Rubber Rose beauty ranch, also owned by The Countess, to shoot a Yoni Yum commercial. At the ranch, she makes the acquaintance of the inscrutable Chink (Pat Morita) and Bonanza Jellybean (Rain Phoenix). But under the nose of The Countess, the cowgirls on the ranch are talking mutiny, with the women trying to liberate the Rubber Rose Ranch from the chains of patriarchal oppression. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uma Thurman, John Hurt, (more)
In director Dennis Hopper's comedy reminiscent of The Last Detail, Rock Reilly (Tom Berenger), a gruff naval veteran who plays by the rules, arrives at a Marine base, in tow with his wheeler-dealer companion Eddie Devane (William McNamara), and finds himself assigned to escort the voluptuous Toni Johnson (Erika Eleniak) to military prison, Toni being sentenced from seven to ten years for assault and going AWOL. As in The Last Detail, the three service-persons get to know each other (in the case of Toni and Rock, they get to know each other intimately) as they make their way across the Southeastern seaboard to deliver Toni to prison. As they travel on, Toni repeatedly tries to escape from the two men as the trio encounters an array of guest-star cameos (Gary Busey, Seymour Cassel, Crispin Glover, Dean Stockwell, Frederic Forrest, and Marilu Henner -- among others). Even Hopper himself makes an appearance -- as a dirty old man with an inflatable date. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Berenger, Erika Eleniak, (more)
Val Kilmer delivers what was considered one of 1991's best performances as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's hallucinatory bio-pic of the seminal 1960s rock group The Doors. Stone cuts a jagged swath through Morrison's life, starting with a childhood memory where Morrison sees an elderly Indian dying by the roadside. It picks up with Morrison's arrival in California and his assimilation into the Venice Beach culture, followed by his film school days at UCLA; his introduction to his girlfriend Pamela Courson (Meg Ryan); his first encounters with Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLachlan); and the origin of The Doors -- made up of Manzarek, Robby Kreiger (Frank Whaley), and John Densmore (Kevin Dillon). As the fame of The Doors grows, Morrison's obsession with death increases. The band grows weary of Morrison's missed recording sessions and no-shows at concerts. Morrison, meanwhile, sinks deeper into a drug-induced haze, having mystical sexual encounters with Patricia Kennealy (Kathleen Quinlan), an older rock journalist involved with sadomasochism and witchcraft. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, (more)
In this comedy from writer-director John Boorman, wealthy real estate mogul Stewart McBain (Dabney Coleman) owns a demolition firm which specializes in blowing up old buildings to make way for upscale new ones. When neighbors protest his plans to raze a dilapidated old building to make way for a new Brooklyn subdivision, television crews film the confrontation, and McBain comes off like a fool. His three spoiled children ridicule him. Tired of their carping, McBain gives them each $750 and drops them off at the old building, known as the Dutch House. Daphne (Uma Thurman), Chloe (Suzy Amis) and Jimmy (David Hewlett) are at first completely lost, because they have no idea how to live in the real world. As McBain and his wife Jean (Joanna Cassidy) monitor their children's progress, the three youngsters learn to get along with the neighborhood people and eventually set up a commune of sorts, into which they invite their friends and various homeless people. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dabney Coleman, Uma Thurman, (more)
Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a pair of lovers on the run in David Lynch's surrealist road movie Wild at Heart. Cage's Sailor Ripley is a violent ex-convict with an Elvis Presley fixation who falls in love with Dern's Lula Pace Fortune, the daughter of a rich, but mentally unstable, Southern belle named Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother). Just after Sailor is released from prison, where he was jailed for brutally killing one of Marietta's thugs, he and Lula take off on a wild cross-country trip, pursued by his parole officer, her mother, criminals, bounty hunters, and detectives. Along the way, Sailor and Lula have a lot of sex, share their pasts, share their respective obsessions for Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and meet a lot of bizarre characters, including a seedy ex-marine (Willem Dafoe) who persuades Sailor to participate in a bank robbery. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, (more)
The nude, strangled body of a teenaged girl lies on the edge of the river. Her murderer is her boyfriend, Daniel Roebuck. All the kids in Roebuck's dismal, dead-end town know who committed the murder. Trouble is, no one bothers to turn Roebuck in; some of the teens don't know how to react to the crime, while others, strung out on drugs and booze, just don't give a damn. A study of contemporary alienation, River's Edge was based on a real-life incident that occurred in Milpitas, California, in 1981. That same year, Neal Jimenez wrote his screenplay for River's Edge, but was not able to finance the project until 1987. Except for Dennis Hopper, cast as a holdover from the sixties who hobbles about on one leg and makes love to a blow-up doll, the cast was largely comprised of unknowns, many of whom (Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye) would definitely be heard from in the future. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, (more)
