IT IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE! screening

Yesterday I went to see the screening of Crispin Glover's IT IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE! The evening opened with him reading from many of his books, and giving a very good performance. It was good to hear the author read it, because you always understand the book better when the author reads it out loud or makes a performance of it, and Crispin Glover's books aren't always easy to understand. After he finished his performance he screened his second part of the IT trilogy, entitled IT IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE! It tells the story of Paul (Steven C. Stewart), a man suffering from Cerebral Palsy, who spends his days wasting away in a nursing home. To pass his time, he fantasizes about the man he should be despite his twisted body. People are able to understand him verbally, women find him irresistible, and he is a legitimate threat to anyone who stands in his way. His thoughts detail four possible relationships he would have and their various outcomes.

To my surprise the movie was very good. Not that I didn't expect Crispin Glover to do good when it came to filmmaking, but I haven't had a liking for what I thought this movie was going to be, for a long time. I thought it would be more art house, but this movie had everything! It was a very very good movie. Almost everything in the movie was set pieces, so you got that old studio feel, and I also got a slightly Disney and 70's exploitation feel - Sometimes it felt like a fairy tale, and other times it felt like exploitation from the 70's. In many ways it was also a heart warming movie, because Steven C. Stewart wrote it, and he had Cerebral Palsy in real life, and since he was hard to understand he was put in a nursing home, and just basically left to die, because they thought he was brain damaged, but he had a fully functional brain - He just couldn't talk properly. Which was also a good thing about the movie - You couldn't understand what he said most of the time, and it wasn't subtitled. But the response from the other actors and actresses, made you understand to some degree what he was saying. And the movie wouldn't have been the same with subtitles.

After the screening Crispin Glover had a Q&A, and his answers where very detailed and long, which was good. And after the Q&A, there was a book sale and signing. I bought OAK MOT, because I have Rat Catching, which was one of the other books they where selling. So I got in line, and I had also brought some DVD's I wanted signed, but you never know how people are going to react to this, so I asked politely - ''Is it rude of me to ask if I can get some DVD covers signed?'' - And he had no problem with it, which I was very happy about, because even thought I like his books, I am foremost a movie fan. This is why I came.

I also had a little chat with Crispin after, and I asked about my thought on the movie. I asked: ''During the making of these films, where you very inspired by Disney and 70's exploitation?'' He replied: ''I've seen many Russ Meyer films which I liked, and Steven wrote it in the early 80's, so it felt right to have that sort of feeling in the movie. But it was nothing I thought about during the making of the film.''

He has a house in The Czech Republic, where they will film the third and final instalment for the IT trilogy, he will be playing along his father, which he has never done. They are rebuilding a stable at the house as a sound studio. But this is not his next project, and he doesn't know when it will be finished. He also said to me that he doesn't even know if he will release the movies, because of how the industry will be when he finishes. He used 9 years on the first movie, so when the whole trilogy will be finished was impossible for him to say.

I had a great time, the book performance, the screening, the Q&A, the signing and our little talk was great. Everything was just amazing! Crispin Glover was a very nice guy, and had good answers for my questions.

Crispin also said he would be back to Norway to show us the first part of the IT trilogy.

Featured in the pictures are OAK MOT signed, WILLARD signed, FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER signed - All by Crispin Glover of course. And the last two pictures are me and my girlfriend with Crispin Glover.

Click on pictures for larger size.