Movie Monday: The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus - 5-out-of-10 T's

I have no idea what happened in this movie. Like, none whatsoever.

This review could have been about Robin Hood, but I heard that that movie sucked, so me and the guys rented something instead, and I figure this movie is recent enough to count for Movie Monday. There we are, with pizza and Pepsi and the biggest flat screen hi-def television I've ever seen (seriously, the little "Sony Pictures" clip at the beginning was the most beautiful thing my eyes have ever had the privilege to glance upon) and comfy couches, and the movie starts, and I just got more and more confused.

Here's what I gleaned, and you can find this out from the stuff on the back of the box: Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) and his midget, Mini Me, (Verne Troyer), are both immortal, I think. The Doc has a daughter who the devil (Tom Waits, awesome) will claim for his own on her 16th birthday, three days away, unless the Doc gets 5 souls by that time. Heath Ledger shows up out of nowhere and helps. And there's a mirror.

THAT IS ALL I GOT.

These films that apparently have awesome stories that bend the mind and are supposed to make you think and make sense if you think outside the box of accepted narrative stylings always give me a headache.

I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON

Dr. Parnassus was tricked by Tom Waits thousands of years ago, and now he holds the whole world in his brain or something. For some reason, he has a sideshow that he drags around England with a helper, his daughter, and Mini Me, and they try to get people to go into the mirror. When they do, they find a world ruled by their own imaginations. At some point in their psychedelic journeying through the looking glass, they are presented with a choice: good (The Dr.) or evil (The Devil). In the case of a drunk guy, it's a giant staircase (A 12x12x12 step program to recovery!) or a bar. If you choose the bad one, you explode. Or something like that.

Guh.

Why wasn't this rated worse than a 5? Very simple: even though I had no idea what I was looking at or what was going on, there were some very pretty things to look at presented in a very interesting way. Also, it had some great actors, and each of them get at least one point added because of their presence alone: Christopher Plummer +1, Colin Farrell +1, Heath Ledger +1, Johnny Depp +1, Jude Law +1, Mini Me -1, Pretty Visuals and daughter (very pretty daughter!) +1 = 5 out of 10.

Really good actors, and the ladies love 'em.

Actually, that isn't fair, Verne did a really good job. But I like my math there.

If it hadn't been for the company I kept while watching this film, and what I watched it on (GAAAAH IT WAS GLORIOUS), I probably would have hated this film. Strong visuals and good actors cannot carry a film that makes me wonder if there were special mushrooms on my pizza.

On the flip side... this thing was a labor of love. Their main character died with plenty of filming left to do, so they had to get creative. Enter the three guys up there: every time Heath goes through the mirror, he looks different on the inside. I like that idea a lot. They did what they could with what they had, and I don't know what the movie would have been if Ledger had been able to finish it, but the fact that they did finish it when they had a setback like that really kind of endears me to them.

I don't regret paying the 3 bucks to rent this. But, I'm gonna need to make some serious life changes before I watch this again: namely, become more accepting of mind-expanding pharmaceuticals.

"Doc, you should really take a hit of this..."