Think, McFly, Think!

Ah, Crispin Glover. He's best known to all you plebians as George McFly from Robert Zemeckis' rightfully beloved teen-sci-fi-comedy classic Back to the Future. But Glover's actually had an extensive career, both in music and in filmdom. I particularly enjoyed him as the title character in 2003's woefully underseen Bartleby, but he's also quite good in the somewhat more popular films Willard and, of course, Charlie's Angels.

I even wrote Mr. Glover a letter last year. Not even an e-mail, mind you, but a personal letter. He never wrote me back.

I wrote him because of an interview I'd read with him in the Onion A/V Club. He lamented that America lacked a truly undergroud, counter-culture movement in film. He's interested in avant-garde filmmaking and surrealism and abstract visual art, you see, and feels that, while there's plenty of room for American filmmakers to explore a variety of themes and storytelling styles, there isn't really an audience or a group of filmmakers passionate about truly experimental filmmaking.

And I fully agree. In fact, at the time I read this interview, I had just completed my own Bunuel-inspired surreal script (titled "Evil Will Prevail"). I was upset myself that no one seemed interested in producing my script, even though all who read it agreed that it was interesting, well-written and strikingly different.

But the purpose of this post is not to toot my own horn or brag about my phenomenal writing skills. You people come to this blog often enough, I'm assuming, to know better than that. I'm simply informing you of some background on this topic before I get to the exciting news:

Glover has apparently finished work on his first feature film as a writer/director (not to mention producer/star). He's credited by his full name, by the way: Crispin Hellion Glover.

The film is entitled What Is It?, and just as he promised in that interview long ago, it seems to star people with Down Syndrome and make no discernable sense. I can't wait.

And I encourage you to view the trailer here. That is, if you don't mind seeing weird naked people climb out of holes set to atonal semi-music and shrieking. In fact, it kind of reminds me of Ileana Douglas' student film Mirror Father Mirror from Ghost World. And I mean that in the best way possible.