At two hours and a quarter, this should be an especially big treat for the thirty-four fans, nationwide, of Hal Hartley's stilted and persnickety whimsy. Others will be ready to leave after maybe ten minutes: the precise minute, that is, when a trampy teenager drops her drawers in the neighborhood deli and commands an introverted garbage man named Simon to "kiss my ass," and he throws up on it instead. In ensuing developments, the garbage man (James Urbaniak, angular in looks, flat in speech) begins to compose a "scatological" epic in "a kind of iambic pentameter," under the pedantic tutelage of a mysterious bearded stranger, self-described "exile," presumable Mephistophelean figure, and, as it turns out, convicted pedophile (stage actor Thomas Jay Ryan, in a theatrically arch performance). The poem elicits a range of reactions from the people who get to look at it -- awe, shock, critical scorn, premature menstruation, a miraculous cure of muteness -- but the moviegoer is not allowed to see what these people see. Probably just as well. Parker Posey, Kevin Corrigan. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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