Inside Monkey Zetterland

Reality Bites for [..] Gen Xers
Thrilled that this is finally on DVD. An adorable, funny, absurd, self conscious mish mash with an amazing cast. Sandra Bernhard is divine as Imogene. For gay men who have been immersed and insulated by their friends and family's lives, this movie is a wonderful gift. I've worn out my VHS, and can't wait to own it in widescreen.

Weird name, weirder movie, great cast
Monkey Zetterland (Steve Antin) is a screenwriter with a crazy family. His mom (Katherine Helmond) is a soap star with hemorrhoids, his sister Grace (Patricia Arquette) is a lesbian whose partner (Sofia Coppola) is pregnant, his brother Brent (Tate Donovan) is a self absorbed hair stylist, and his father (Bo Hopkins) is an absentee oddball who shows up unexpectedly sporting a pet parrot on his shoulder. This doesn't even count the women in Monkey's life : his mean girlfriend (Debi Mazar) who dumps him, his stalker Imogene (Sandra Bernhard), and his mom's stalker (Ricki Lake) who tries to get to her through him. Finally there is the terrorist couple (Rupert Everett and Martha Plimpton) that just moved into Monkey's building. Obviously there's far too much going on in this movie. It isn't good by any means but it's occasionally fun to watch thanks to the cast. The plot, about Monkey trying to sell a screenplay about the L.A. boxcar system of the 30's, makes no sense. The humor, like...

Another zany, cute, quirky indie film with lovably kooky characters (yawn)
I can almost imagine someone pitching this idea for a "movie" to a studio or producer: "Hey, let's get some attractive young B- and C-list actors (and a couple of over-the-hill types) and they're all lovably zany, kooky and quirky oddball characters, and at the center is an intelligent but naturally underachieving slacker that's creative, and we'll throw them all together (at, say, a holiday dinner) and they'll project their oddball-quirky characterizations at each other for, say, 90 minutes. We'll FILM it and have a movie. Plot? Who needs one! Realistic characters? No one wants to see realistic characters, just as long as we give them 'indie movie'-type quirks! Just like in the Tarantino knockoff 'Killing Zoe,' the ruthless leader of a gang of thieves is also a jazz trombone player! Or in 'indie crime' films where the mob boss is a handsome, erudite, well-dressed fellow that reads Kant and Kafka and talks like Gore Vidal, as most real-life mob bosses do. It'll be great!"...

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