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Rating:  -
If everything in your life is going well, you'll likely regard this story as somewhat frustrating. For once could you NOT be drunk, Barlow?? But if you have unfulfilled dreams and are struggling without sympathy or support, and face it, most of us have been there at one time or another, then you'll find this one of the most compelling, engaging stories ever. The character of Leon Barlow (Arliss Howard) is both complex and perplexing. You'll want to watch this more than once. And get the sound track too -- awesome music!
Rating:  -
I bought this DVD for my brother's birthday because he has almost all of Larry Brown's books (as does my wife) and neither had heard of "Big Bad Love". To me this movie is more about Larry Brown than Arliss Howard or Debra Winger, who most of the critics discuss rather than its resemblance to an autobiography of Brown.
If you have read any of Brown's books, you will soon realize that you probably can't get through all of them -- too much this, or too much that, as your tastes dictate. So it is with this movie. Winger gives the movie credibility and is probably the best reason to see it.
For those of you who think the movie setting is hokum, leave the University campus and take a quick swing around Oxford where Brown lived and worked until his untimely death. Mixed in with all the ante bellum homes, oak lined boulevards, new mansions, University professors, Faulkner festivals and professional people, you will find just the kind of people and neighborhoods portrayed in this movie.
Rating: -
Unusually good adaptation of a set of stories by Larry Brown, strung together into a good script and very well acted on all accounts. If you're a struggling writer, it will make you laugh, and then you'll be back into your normal depression at how the publishing mill spits out great writers in favor of hacks every day.
Rating:  -
"Some dreams ruin being awake if you know the difference. Best not to know."
In high school I spent the night over at a friend's house. We lived out in the country. He wanted to watch "Pink Floyd: The Wall." He said you had to be on drugs to really get it. He didn't have any drugs, but he said if we watched the movie really late at night, being half-awake and half-asleep, that it might give the same experience. Watching "Big Bad Love" reminded me of that night, even though I watched it wide awake on a Sunday afternoon. It's what "The Wall" might've been if Roger Waters had been a writer who'd grown up in Mississippi.
I think I needed to read Larry Brown's book of short stories before I watched this so I could have better appreciated the film's narrative. Halfway through, I gave up trying to connect with any of the multiple storylines and started watching it as an expressionist portrait of a writer's struggle. This is Arliss (Men Don't Leave) Howard's directorial debut -- he also plays the main character, Barlow. Howard has been acting for over twenty years, and this seems like a film packed with all the ideas from a notebook kept during that time of scenes he'd want to direct whenever he got the opportunity. Those scenes are gorgeously shot, and are filled with powerful small moments - the opening sex scene with Marilyn (Debra Winger) in a bathtub wearing a wedding gown, Barlow and best friend Monroe (Paul Le Mat) chasing after the Flasher in their pick-up truck, the scenes with Rosanna Arquette -- but the overall narrative structure is so disjointed that it made it difficult for me to become emotionally engaged with anyone other than Barlow. This is a shame because the supporting players all deliver strong performances that are all lost in Barlow's detached, tormented, inebriated perspective. Then again, maybe that's the point. Howard inhabits Barlow on the screen and behind the camera. There's a tragedy late in the story that provides some focus, but the film never really loses its hallucinatory feel.
Also, the soundtrack is worth checking out if you're into eclectic blues. In the film, there's a scene in a bar featuring the late R.L. Burnside performing "Snake Drive" as Barlow punches some guy's lights out.
Rating: -
I've read some Larry Brown novels but not the short story this movie was based on -- this might have been a good thing. I had no particular expectations, except that the movie would be about a writer and that, as with other Brown characters, the writer would be frustrated and maybe drunk.
I'm *not* a writer, so this is hard for me to explain -- but watching Big Bad Love was like being in Brown's head. What a great experience. I can't think of any other film that's done this. I enjoyed every second, and I'd like to thank Arliss Howard and everyone involved for doing it.
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