Schizopolis (1997)

Load of rubbish!!

Good movie but grossly overrated

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Schizopolis is piled with layers of amusement for the id, ego, and superego. People earn their liberal arts degrees in order to be able to watch and understand this film. Some of it is outright funny (like a man with no pants running around) or weird funny (e.g. an exterminator milkman that talks like the $10,000 Pyramid on Mars), but much of it you have got to get it to get it (not all of it, but some amount); this is, after all, satire and social commentary. So if postmodernism and the contemporary art section of your local museum is not your bag, then you are still probably in the target audience for Schizopolis, but it will likely be a miss. On the other hand, if you are a fan of the 90s era, Office Space and Short Cuts, then Schizopolis may just be your kind of movie.

Movies like Lost Highway, American Beauty and other high-profile, big-budget productions have been praised for their original takes, but in fact it was "Schizopolis" that explored those possibilities first. I find it refreshing and inexplicably underrated. The film is a very funny and bizarre look into the creative mind of its author, Steven Soderbergh. Press conferences on horse urination, marital dissolution, dysfunctional families, work, love, death, identity, the hilarious (and tragic) absurdity of life– everything is scrutinized here under a mask of randomness which makes everything unpredictable and crazy funny. "Schizopolis" gleefully delves into the absurd and blends it with satire in a most original social commentary, mocking all conventions and confinements. This type of humor is my kind. For fans of Kafka, Eugene Ionesco and Urmuz, Samuel Beckett, Kurt Vonnegut or David Lynch, this will be a blast. On a third viewing, all this "mess" makes perfect sense, and it's beautiful. "Sneeze!"

I will echo a comment that someone made about -The Big Lebowski- (my #1 favorite comedy followed by this delightful mess). "Warning: this film transmits on a strictly limited wavelength." If you don't catch this curveball, you're likely to be bored. I won't say that if you don't like it on first viewing, then you're never going to like it. In my case, certain movies get more enjoyable on repeat viewings even after receiving a ho-hum response the first time around. This is one of those movies. With a narrative more fractured than your average David Lynch film, there are connections between one scene and another that jump out and take notice only on repeat viewings, sort of like "portals" from one part of the movie to another. Music that plays, pictures shown on the wall, one-sided phone conversations, that sort of thing. Aside from the already-limited-wavelength humor, these amplify the laugh factor. This is a movie destined for some kind of limited cult-following someday, but keeping to a murmur level when you're standing next to an air conditioner. The Criterion DVD has some good features and outtakes, like the "Maximum Busy Muscle" segment extolling the virtues of all products vinyl.Update Nov. '06. Re-watching this almost on a whim, and it all comes together (such as it is) even more. This is truly hilarious, a comedy masterpiece reveling in all its many absurdities, which come one after the other at a highly accelerated rate. I'm upping my vote from 9 to 10."You will learn something from me here today." --Elmo Oxygen (Noooo!!! Oooogghghgh!!)

The first time I saw this movie, I wasn't really sure what to think. It is very strange and bizarre and quirky. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're a Steven Soderbergh fan, I would check it out. Don't let the hard to follow story deter you from finishing this crazy film. And if you rent it, watch it at least twice before returning it, because you will understand it much more the second time through. Schizopolis is full of schizophrenia, so that's what you should expect. I think it's good in it's own way... rather artsy, in a poignant and ambiguous way.