The Big Empty (2003)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I did not expect much of this movie, but I got a lot out of it. I don't know much about acting, but I do know story lines, and this has plenty of surprises and great plot twists ("real" not "contrived" in the sense that Superman or Star Trek can be contrived sometimes and real other times).It is entirely plausible (as one reviewer pointed out) that this is a recycling of the "Twilight Zone" To Serve Man (TV Episode 1962) with the ending quote: "The book 'How To Serve Man' is a cookbook". The band-aids remind me of a movie I saw in the late 1950's early 1960's about a kid seeing a meteor or spaceship land, and gradually everyone he knows has a band aid on their neck and a new attitude. The ending is cool with the girl friend sporting blue eyes for the first time ("you look different") and the #11 bowling shoes with the white heels, and the bowling ball in the desert. The creepy, but well-timed cowboy is a trip in-and-of-itself ("He left $1,000, and I don't charge that much"), and the jealous boyfriend is a cute realistic, yet sad touch to the empty, painful lives that are lived "in quiet desperation."Like slave trades in the 1700's, there are many who'd sell their own kind to get money. (Hey, forget about back then: Afghans made big money informing on neighbors who may / may not have been enemy combatants who wound up in Guantanamo Bay Prison. That's like torture, slavery. And one guy in Guantanamo was innocent, but was tortured so much that the US Government doesn't want to release him since he'll be really angry at the USA*... gee, we do that to people?).But, as i said: it makes sense that people are promised something (bogus or real) and they're "okay with it", which is the punchline at the end of the Roseanne (Barr) episode where Arnie leaves his girlfriend, and in a note says he is traveling with Aliens, which sounds like horrible baloney from Arnie, who is an ass, plain and simple. But as the credits roll, you see 2 aliens on a ship, with Arnie sitting in a chair in the back, and the one Alien says to the other Alien in a strange language but with subtitles: "Does he know that he is coming to our planet to be a pet for our kids," and the other alien replies "Yes, and he's okay with it"*' Yet another issue exists whereas innocent people are held. "Documents from CIA revealed that 150 Guantanamo Bay prisoners were innocent but the US government kept them locked up for years anyway, The Daily Record informs." http://goo.gl/vgWi0 Realistically, when tortures don't even work on guilty detainees, what can the US government get from innocent prisoners? ' http://debatewise.org/debates/3575-the-us-should-immediately-close- guantanamo-bay/

First time director Steve Anderson cobbled together a movie that makes little sense and frustrates more than it entertains. Meant to be the wacky story of an average Joe - Jon Favreau's John Person - trapped in an off-kilter small town of weird folks, The Big Empty is a confusing tale of a boring actor who needs to pay some bills.The Big Empty has some interesting characters and situations but the problem is the main character, Person. Faced with the bizarre or dangerous, most people would react with fight or flight. What does Person do? Not much of anything; for the most part he seems non-plussed. So we are left with off-beat characters interacting with someone who doesn't respond to their odd or violent behavior.Add to this the poorly defined central female roles of Rachael Leigh Cook and Joey Lauren Adams. Cook's teenage Ruthie changes her personality part way through the film like she's actually a pair of good/evil twins, and Adams' Grace is devoid of anything beyond a cute smile.The fun that The Big Empty does bring to the screen comes from sexy bartender Daryl Hannah, screenwriter/cop Kelsey Grammar, loony neighbor Bud Cort, and nosy motel manager Joe Gries.

The movie is quirky; if you prefer straight-forward action adventure plots, comedies, or social commentary, you'll soon be lost. The Big Empty leaves a lot to the viewer; in the end, it's up to the audience to determine exactly what happened, and why. John Favreau is sent on a journey that, like many things in life, takes him places he never expected. The cast makes all of the eccentric characters believable, and somehow you forget that it's 'just a movie'. Lots of interesting plot twists that all make sense in the end. Is it science fiction, fantasy, film noir conspiracy? Well, The Big Empty is all of those; and more. Or maybe none of those; like I said, the audience gets to decide. The DVD includes deleted scenes, director's commentary, and several other extras. The soundtrack by Brian Tyler is almost good enough to justify the entire movie. The Big Empty may not be a film that makes a lot of money, but it's clear it was a lot of fun to make.

I've just read a slew of reviews of this film. People really hate this movie and to be honest, I don't understand why. In The Big Empty, Jon Favreau plays an out of work actor who is hired/blackmailed by his landlord/neighbor (Bud Cort, aka Harold, of Harold and Maude) to deliver a briefcase to a Cowboy in the wastelands of Central California. He is reluctant, but has nothing better to do. He heads out, leaving Joey Lauren Adams in a neighboring apartment without any shoes. As he wanders through a stark, Bakersfieldian landscape seeking solace, and a violent Englishman in full-agg-hetero cowboy regalia, he is accosted by eldritch horrors, unspeakable fornications, vicious chainsaw wielding savages, and Frasier's Kelsey Grammar. Eventually, the weirdness stacks up until his disturbingly over-sized head is viciously exploded and his torso becomes a giant bowling ball. ...wait, that's not right. It's close though. This movie IS quirky and original. Don't let the naysayers fool you with their saying of nay. In this fine piece of cinema we encounter many elements that we've seen before, but they are cobbled together into a funny and cruel shoeful of surrealist whackiness. I laughed and was temporarily dumbstuck by the shear unpredictability of it all. The cast does a fine job, and should be given waffles and fine international syrups. If you're the type of person who is afraid of movies that you can't figure out in the first five minutes (or at all), go back to the DaVinci Code. You are not ready. --S.Casey Faulkner