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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Film Yesterday the Stranger Suggested: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Posted by Kyle Regan on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 1:28 PM

Meet Kyle Regan—a masochistic reader who has vowed to do every single thing recommended by the Stranger Suggests (movies, galleries, bars, concerts) for the month of January. Look for his reports daily on Slog. —Eds.

When I heard on the news that Heath Ledger had died my first response was, “Who the hell is Heath Ledger?" The last movie I has seen with Ledger in it 10 Things I Hate About You. He wasn't an actor whose name I knew, you know? Watching The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus—his last, and posthumous, film—I couldn't help thinking about how I was watching a dead man. Lack of tact aside, the dude has been gone for two years. Maybe it only feels weird because Imaginarium's marketing team isn't milking his death, like Dark Knight did.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

As for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, well, it was pretty. The dream sequences were ball-trippingly awesome. If the movie was nothing but Tom Waits running around in the CGI wonderland, I would have been perfectly content. Waits pretty much steals the show as the Devil.

heath-ledger-as-tony-in-the-imaginarium-of-doctor-parnassus.jpg

I'm willing to accept the whole shtick about monks being visited by the devil, and Christopher Plummer lives for thousands of years with his sidekick Verne Troyer. Sure, whatever: I'll suspend my disbelief. The progress of Ledger's character Tony, however, feels broken. He is saved by Parnassus's posse from apparently certain death. He tries to mask his dark past by helping out the poor nomad performers. Legit as shit so far. Then in the last 30 minutes he becomes ULTRA BAD GUY WHO WILL STOP AT NOTHING FOR MONEY AND POWER. A complete character 180 from the charming, good-natured man he was just moments before. Bullshit. I don't know if it was forced due to Ledger's untimely demise, but it didn't make sense.

SPOILERS ARE DONE!

Between the over-your-head plot nuances and strange character development, I was left underwhelmed. The dreamscapes were pretty but it wasn't enough to pull me in. But a man is dead so I feel like a total dick for not liking the The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Comments (10) RSS

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Kyle. Kyle. Kyle. Love ya dude, but you really should run your submissions by a copy editor. Also, this is a Terry Gilliam film, not a Heath Ledger film. Is the name Terry Gilliam familiar to you?

Posted by Scholar of violence on January 14, 2010 at 1:56 PM

I'm taken aback that a Stranger staffer is unaware of Brokeback Mountain. It's a movie about gay dudes, Kyle. Kinda famous.

Posted by eric (the other one) on January 14, 2010 at 2:00 PM

Um, does this 30-day gig qualify you as a staffer? Maybe not. Still, Brokeback.

Posted by eric (the other one) on January 14, 2010 at 2:01 PM

I'd like to see Kyle attach a quality rating - say, x out of 10 - to these recommendation outings. That way, at the end of the month, he can post a chart showing the relative quality of each recommender.

Posted by Free Lunch on January 14, 2010 at 2:12 PM

Man, all I could think about when looking at that photo was how uncomfortable it looks. Shit, I'd spend all day in pantyhose and high heels before I'd wear that.

Posted by Fifty-Two-Eighty

on January 14, 2010 at 2:19 PM

Hahaha. Your first mistake was assuming that a Terry Gilliam movie would make sense. His movies never make sense. They are entirely about the mind trip. To appreciate a Terry Gilliam movie, you just have to give up on any sense of logic or reality.

I haven't seen this movie yet, but I plan to soon.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on January 14, 2010 at 2:35 PM

@ 4 - I think that's a great idea.

I'm loving these reviews. Not to sound patronizing (because I certainly don't mean to be), but they're so everyman. When film people write about films, art people about art, or music buffs about music - it's like: "great, but that's your thing".

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of reviewers able to write to the everyman, but it's a different thing to be writing as the everyman.

Posted by Dee on January 14, 2010 at 3:20 PM

That's what I love about these reviews. Dude has no pretensions whatsoever.

Posted by laterite on January 14, 2010 at 3:41 PM

He's right about the ending. I mean-- he runs a world child poverty organization-- to harvest them for their organs??? really??!! was that necessary to establish that he is actually a BAD MAN?

Posted by SecretBYUBottomBoy on January 14, 2010 at 4:10 PM

@7 & 8, Yep, Kyle is the Sarah Palin of Slogtown. You betcha! Wink. Wink.

Posted by (Jeb)Bush/Regan 2012 on January 15, 2010 at 5:51 AM