(I’m currently in the waiting room at the dentist’s, so I’ll add to this post later)

[moon_custafer]

Breakfast of Champions (1999) would make an interesting double-bill with True Stories (1986)—both take place in small towns where the American Dream has gone very, very weird. Midland City is holding an arts festival, while Virgil is honouring the Texas sesquicentennial with a “Celebration of Specialness.”

Both movies feature a manic local businessman, and a woman who stays in bed watching tv all day, among their cast of characters. They have a similar quirky visual style. True Stories has more musical numbers, although Breakfast of Champions does have Lukas Haas crooning ‘Take My Hand, I’m a Stranger In Paradise’ while covered in glitter.

ETA—

Breakfast of Champions flopped when it came out—the Vonnegut purists didn’t like how it diverged from the novel, and nobody else had any idea what to make of it. 

Everybody involved was giving it their all, and it’s weird, but it’s not messy—all the parts fit together, even if the connections often operate on dream or myth logic. Everything and everyone’s connected—I’m pretty sure the thin/fat couple Francine (Glenne Headley) mocks while watching the local news show up again as the customers Wayne Hoobler (Omar Epps) sells a vehicle to for $32. Hoobler’s compulsion to yell Fairyland! when he’s happy or excited gets triggered in the last reel when Dwayne Hooper (Bruce Willis), his madness given solipsistic form by Kilgore Trout (Albert Finney)’s story ‘Now It Can Be Told,’ calls Hoobler “a trust machine” and Hoobler embraces it. I’m not completely sure, but I think Hoobler’s excited shout may be what opens the portal in the mirror that allows Trout to leave for another universe.

Everyone keeps saying that Dwayne’s wife Celia (Barbara Hershey) does nothing in the story—even the director says this and claims it because her character was already dead in the original book—but I think she is trying to push Dwayne to understand what’s going on; and at the end, she throws him the galoshes that allow him to cross the toxic creek.

Comments

[sovay]

Both movies feature a manic local businessman, and a woman who stays in bed watching tv all day, among their cast of characters.

I had no idea. I would have expected the second of these figures to be rarer.

[moon_custafer]

thought for sure I’d reviewed True Stories on this blog when I first watched it a few years ago, but I can’t find it. I’d say Byrne has a bit more affection for his weird small town, even as he observes things like the dot com boom, mall sprawl, and conspiracy theories.

[sovay]

thought for sure I’d reviewed True Stories on this blog when I first watched it a few years ago, but I can’t find it.

I've seen True Stories. It having any duplicate elements is the part I hadn't known about.

[shadowkat]

I didn't even know they did a film version of Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions? I read the book in the 1980s and have no memory of it, so I may check it out - since I can't remember the book. Although, I don't think Vonnegut's books work well for film adaptation - they are kind of surrealistic philosophical mind dreams from a beat poet.

[sabotabby]

I can't remember if I blocked out the existence of a Breakfast of Champions movie after seeing it or I didn't know it existed.