skippy the bush kangaroo: damn good dick

Friday, July 07, 2006

damn good dick

we just returned from seeing richard linklater's interpretation of philip k. dick's a scanner darkly, starring the cartoon versions of keanu reeves, robert downey jr. and winona ryder.
Example

anyone who knows their dick knows it's all about identity and questions thereof. once you get your hands on a good dick, you've got your hands full of squirming paranoia, hard questions, and hot, juicy confusion. and linklater's dick is no exception.

shot in an updated version of an archaic process known as rotoscope (where the actors are filmed, then the frames of the film are hand-drawn over by animators), the movie has a dreamy, trippy, drug-addled quality to it.

linklater used this process in his previous film waking life, which we have not seen. but we have seen those weird charles schwab commercials, also utilizing it. for the record, they made us want to put all our money under a mattress.

this weird live action/cartoon hybrid only adds to the mysterious tone and atmospherics of dick's tale about an undercover narcotics agent (reeves), hooked on a powerful drug (substance d), who is assigned to surveil himself...as he spins farther and farther into self-doubt and identity crisis.

written in the 70's, some of dick's story of drug culture seems a bit dated. the funniest parts are watching stoned reeves, downey, rider and woody harrelson dealing with the world thru inebriated drug-logic...but those sequences, as laff-filled as they are, after a while seem like they belong in a cheech and chong film (or linklater's own dazed and confused) rather than an essay on self and self-worth.

however, the acting thru the animation is excellent all around, the effects of rotoscope are unnervingly fascinating (especially in the protrayl of the scramble suit, which makes the wearer look like a milion different people all at once), and the plot, which always seems just out of reach of comprehension, is unfailingly dick.

mention must be made of robert downey, jr.'s exquisite performance. even covered in pen and ink, downey is the most animated (pun intended), energetic and riveting presence on screen. and, taken with the knowledge of downey's own troubles with addictive drugs in his private life, his performance has a quality so edgy it cuts.

so, on the dick scale, we'd place a scanner darkly right below harrison ford's dick and right above tom cruise's dick and arnold schwarzenegger's dick.

and tho we were amused by peter weller's dick, we thought far too much was made of gary sinise's dick.

and we never, ever want to see ben affleck's dick again.

posted by skippy at 7:02 PM |