HorrorSpeak---Terror Awaits You in Every Forum!!!!: The Beaver Trilogy (not horror... and not porn either)

I just saw this movie after picking it up on a whim. I had never heard of it before, and all I knew was that it was ''rare and not seen by many people''. ''Good enough for me'', I thought. And I'm glad as hell I didn't pass it up.

It's basically the same story told 3 times in a row (hence ''trilogy''). The first part is real documentary footage, shot by chance by the director when he was out in the parking lot of the TV station he was working at, back in 1979. We see him meet a very eccentric young guy named Groovin' Gary, who was hanging out round' the station taking pictures. Turns out Gary is an amateur impersonator who had come there in hopes of getting on TV. The director films him doing some impromptu impersonations (which all suck except his Stallone one), showing off his weird-ass car, and driving away into the sunset.

A few weeks after that, the director receives a letter from Gary, asking him to come to his small town of Beaver to film a talent show (put together by Gary himself) for TV. Mr Director decides to go, and we see him meet Gary at the town mortuary (the mortician being the only person in town who can do stage makeup). Turns out Gary's number in talent show will be him, in drags, doing Olivia Newton John's ''Please don't Keep Me Waiting''.

After the makeup session, we are treated to the talent show itself, featuring various Beaver citizen (each more awful and untalented than the last), culminating with Gary's TERRIBLE (but strangely emotional and heartfelt) falsetto impersonation of Olivia Newton John.

Part 2, shot in 1981 and in black and white, is pretty much a shot-for-shot recreation of the real-life footage of part 1, only with a few added plot-oriented scenes and a young Sean Penn playing the role of Gary.

Part 3 is a full-fledged movie (lasting about 40 mins.), with ample backstory and a conclusion, based on the doco footage. It was shot in 1985, in color, and this time stars Crispin Glover as Gary.

This brief description doesn't do justice to this very strange, unique and fascinating piece of cinema. I'm not quite sure what I loved so damned much about it, but I'm sure glad I found it.
Like most people and critics who had the chance of seeing it (the full version with all 3 parts was edited together in 2001, and has since played a few festivals and won some prizes), I simply fell in love with that flick.

It's not officially in circulation right now (something about the copyrights for the Olivia Newton John song), but you can buy it directly from the director's site (he also directed Rubin and Ed, also starring Glover, and also not officially in circulation) : http://www.echocave.net/index.html

There are also a few other ways you can see it. A litteral *-*torrent*-* of ways, even -wink-wink-

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We're all champs when we're drunk.
-Paul Kemp