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
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)
Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom's follow-up to the underrated Once Around earned far more attention than its predecessor thanks to the judicious casting of perennial thinking woman's heartthrob Johnny Depp and a certain up-and-coming thespian by the name of Leonardo DiCaprio. A prisoner of his dysfunctional family's broken dreams in tiny Endora, IA, Gilbert (Depp) serves as breadwinner and caretaker for his mother and siblings following his father's suicide and his older brother's defection. Momma (Darlene Cates) is a morbidly obese shut-in who hasn't left the house in seven years; her children include retarded Arnie (DiCaprio), who's about to turn 18 despite a host of negative medical forecasts, and terminally embarrassed Ellen (Mary Kate Schellhardt), who's emerging from an awkward adolescence. When he's not taking care of the difficult but tender Arnie, Gilbert spends his time fixing up the family's tattered farmhouse, working at a failing mom-and-pop grocery store and hanging with local misfits Bobby (Crispin Glover), an overly ambitious junior undertaker, and Tucker (John C. Reilly), a handyman who hankers after a job at the new burger franchise. Into this complicated but essentially unchanging social universe steps Becky (Juliette Lewis), a thoughtful young woman who's been escorting her nomadic grandmother from state to state in a mobile-home caravan. As Becky teaches Gilbert to finally consider his own happiness for a change, she disrupts both his family obligations and his long-running affair with a lonely housewife (Mary Steenburgen). Adapted by Peter Hedges from his own novel of the same name, What's Eating Gilbert Grape was the first and only film role for non-actress Cates, whom the filmmakers discovered on an episode of the Sally Jesse Raphael Show titled "Too Heavy to Leave Their House." ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, (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
- 1992
- PG13
Rubin & Ed is Trent Harris' off-the-wall buddy movie about two mismatched geeks on a quest to bury a frozen cat. Rubin Farr (Crispin Glover) is a shy, reclusive loner who lives in his mother's hotel. He'd much rather sit in his bedroom listening to Mahler, playing with his squeaky-mouse, than go outside. His mother has other plans, however, and one afternoon she decides to pull the plug on Rubin's eccentric behavior. She demands that he go out and make at least one friend. Rubin capitulates, and after a somewhat half-hearted search, he finds Ed Tuttle (Howard Hesseman, in one of his best performances). Ed is a divorced, middle-aged loser enrolled in a self-help/ get-rich-quick organization called PPR: Positive Power through Real Estate. Ed agrees to have dinner with Rubin and his mother if Rubin agrees to attend a PPR training seminar. All goes as planned for both, until Ed opens the freezer and discovers Rubin's dead cat. The unlikely pair then embarks on an hallucinatory quest through the Utah desert in order to find the perfect spot to bury Rubin's cat. Though at first mutually disgusted by each other, Rubin and Ed eventually learn how to become friends. Karen Black is superb as Ed Tuttle's annoying ex-wife Rula, as is Michael Greene as PPR magnate Mr. Busta. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Howard Hesseman, (more)
- 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)
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)
- 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)
Don't mistake this movie for the stormy special-effects blockbuster of the same name; the two films are light years apart. Based on Mary Robison's novel Oh!, this Twister was the quirky first feature from screenwriter/director Michael Almereyda (Nadja, The Eternal) about an eccentric soda-pop tycoon and his dysfunctional family. Suzy Amis plays Maureen Cleveland, a single mother who lives with her precocious daughter Violet (Lindsay Christman) and her very strange brother Howdy (Crispin Glover) in the family mansion, tended by the young live-in housekeeper Lola (Charlaine Woodward). Maureen's ex-boyfriend Chris (Violet's father) comes back to town with the intention of rescuing Maureen and Violet from Kansas so they can start a family of their own. This turns out to be more difficult than he expected. Maureen is still angry about their break-up and seems unresponsive to his earnest and somewhat clumsy displays of affection. Howdy is too busy writing nonsensical songs and hanging out with his new girlfriend Stephanie (Jenny Wright) to be of any help. To complicate matters, their father Eugene (Harry Dean Stanton) shows up with a prudish children's TV evangelist named Virginia (Lois Chiles) and announces their engagement. No one gets along, and soon all are trapped indoors during a particularly bad Kansas twister. As the storm rages outside, Maureen and Howdy cook up a plan to find their long-lost mother, who may be the only person who can explain why they are all so odd. Like Almereyda's later films, Twister is a kaleidoscope of absurd conversations, oddball characters, and events that seem to happen for no reason at all. It's a perfect vehicle for Crispin Glover, who delivers some of the film's wackiest dialogue as the rich kid comfortably living in his own fantasy world. Tim Robbins makes an appearance as Stephanie's jealous ex-boyfriend Jeff, and author William S. Burroughs has a cameo as a farmer shooting targets in an empty barn. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Harry Dean Stanton, Suzy Amis, (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)
Amazingly, At Close Range was based on a true story. Bored teenager Sean Penn meets his prodigal father (Christopher Walken) for the first time in years. Though Penn is vaguely aware that his father is a criminal, he is nonetheless impressed by his dad's high life style and creature comforts. But Walken's veneer of charm is fragile indeed, and it becomes clear that he is willing to kill anyone--even his family--if they get in his way. When Walken rapes Penn's girl friend (Mary Stuart Masterson) to keep the boy from cooperating with the DA, it is only a warm-up for the horrors to come. The screenplay for At Close Range was written by Nicholas Kazan, the son of prominent film director Elia Kazan. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, (more)
- 1985
- PG
Contemporary high schooler Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) doesn't have the most pleasant of lives. Browbeaten by his principal at school, Marty must also endure the acrimonious relationship between his nerdy father (Crispin Glover) and his lovely mother (Lea Thompson), who in turn suffer the bullying of middle-aged jerk Biff (Thomas F. Wilson), Marty's dad's supervisor. The one balm in Marty's life is his friendship with eccentric scientist Doc (Christopher Lloyd), who at present is working on a time machine. Accidentally zapped back into the 1950s, Marty inadvertently interferes with the budding romance of his now-teenaged parents. Our hero must now reunite his parents-to-be, lest he cease to exist in the 1980s. It won't be easy, especially with the loutish Biff, now also a teenager, complicating matters. Beyond its dazzling special effects, the best element of Back to the Future is the performance of Michael J. Fox, who finds himself in the quagmire of surviving the white-bread 1950s with a hip 1980s mindset. Back to the Future cemented the box-office bankability of both Fox and the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, who went on to helm two equally exhilarating sequels. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, (more)
Arthur Hiller directed this satiric look at contemporary urban high schools, examining disillusioned teachers who try to regain their idealism. Nick Nolte stars as Alex, a teacher at John Fitzgerald Kennedy High School, who was once an idealistic teacher but whose main concern now is sobering up before the next class session. The high school is headed by ineffective principal Mr. Horn (William Schallert) and an imperious vice-principal named Roger (Judd Hirsch). When a recent graduate of the high school sues the school because it graduated him illiterate, Alex finds himself in conflict with the hard-nosed school superintendent Dr. Burke (Lee Grant). The high school heats up even more when Alex falls in love with Lisa (JoBeth Williams), the attractive lawyer who was once one of Alex's honor students. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nick Nolte, JoBeth Williams, (more)
- 1984
- R
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Hockey-masked killer Jason Vorhees returns to terrorize a lakeside family and their rowdy teen neighbors in this fourth installment of the long-running slasher series. After the events of Friday the 13th, Part 3, Jason's seemingly lifeless body is brought to the morgue, where horny attendant Axel (Bruce Mahler) is trying to score with foxy Nurse Morgan (Lisa Freeman). The pair quickly meet a grisly end. Meanwhile, at Crystal Lake, estranged wife Mrs. Jarvis (Joan Freeman) and her kids -- young Tommy (Corey Feldman) and teenaged Trish (Kimberly Beck) -- find their quiet invaded by a group of hard-partying kids moving into the rental house next door. The youngsters include curious virgin Sara (Barbara Howard), hot-to-trot Samantha (Judie Aronson), and nebbish Jimmy (Crispin Glover). Tommy, a monster makeup enthusiast, enjoys watching the scantily clad young ladies through his window, while Trish toys with the idea of joining in their revelries. Also lurking around the area is Rob (Erich Anderson), who claims to be hunting bear but actually has mysterious ties to the events of Friday the 13th, Part 2. As the house full of teens begins to pair off -- aided by the addition of local twins Tina (Camilla More) and Terri (Carey More) to the mix -- an unseen killer begins to pick them off one by one. The bloodshed climaxes with a tense showdown in which Tommy disguises himself as a bald, lumpy boyhood version of Jason in hopes of distracting the relentless psychopath who hunts him. Feldman would return for a cameo in Friday the 13th, Part V: A New Beginning, only to be replaced by another actor in a grown-up version of the role. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Crispin Glover, Kimberly Beck, (more)
Sean Penn graduated to full stardom with the 1984 drama Racing with the Moon, even though the film itself hardly set new box office records. Set in the early years of World War II, the film stars Penn as a small-town teen-aged hotshot, six weeks away from being shipped out to fight overseas. In the meantime, Penn begins to date Elizabeth McGovern, whom he assumes is from a wealthy family. Penn's pal Nicolas Cage, who's gotten his girlfriend Suzanne Adkinson pregnant, imposes upon Penn to hit up McGovern for the abortion money. That's when Penn discovers that the girl barely has a penny to her name. Convinced that Penn cared for her only when he thought she was rich, McGovern walks out on him, but later teams up with Penn to help the unfortunate Adkinson. The plot is pure James Dean, a fact not lost on fans who regarded Sean Penn as the second coming of Dean. A very slight piece, Racing With the Moon is buoyed by the engaging performances of the stars, and by director Richard Benjamin's meticulous attention to period detail-especially in those peerless bowling-alley and skating-rink sequences. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, (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)
- 1982
- R
In this standard young teen/older woman sex story, Bobby (Matt Lattanzi) has had trouble with French at school, and sex out of school, and so his rich parents hire a winsome 30-year-old tutor (Caren Kaye) to help him with the first subject, without thinking that she would help him with the second as well. The father (Kevin McCarthy) is not exactly subtle about his interest in the tutor, but the discerning woman prefers his much more sensitive son. A few comic moments with Bobby's friends trying to teach him about sex, and a more respectful treatment of the sexual relationship between the tutor and young teen alleviates some of the otherwise, run-of-the-mill storyline. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Caren Kaye, Matt Lattanzi, (more)
Penned by Dan Greenburg, Private Lessons details the plight of a rich, fifteen-year-old boy (Eric Brown) whose French maid (Sylvia Kristel of the Emmanuelle series) is hired to teach him the finer points of l'amour. A contrived subplot involving a blackmail scheme complicates matters but really only serves as padding between the erotic scenes. In the end, the boy ends up wiser for the wear in more ways than one as he learns all the sordid details. Typical of many early '80s adolescent-oriented T & A films, this entry includes plenty of leering nudity and debauchery, although it seems comparatively tame compared with many others. Surprisingly, Private Lessons was a box-office hit at the time of its release; presumably, many film-goers had seen Kristel in her role as Emmanuelle, although they would have been disappointed to learn a body-double stood in during her love scenes in this case. A similarly-themed film, My Tutor, was released soon after. ~ Jeremy Beday, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sylvia Kristel, Howard Hesseman, (more)
