Read The 100 Best Movies You've Never Seen for Free Online

on-screen role as a party-goer, and some delicious '60s psychedelia from one-hit wonders The Strawberry Alarm Clock, who perform their 1967 chart topper “Incense and Peppermints.”
    BIG BAD LOVE (2001)
    â€œThe staggering tale of one man's relentless pursuit of imperfection.”
    â€” Advertising tagline for Big Bad Love
    Big Bad Love
is a surreal movie based on a short story collection by Mississippi writer Larry Brown. “A book and a film have as much to do with each other as a turkey does to a sandwich,” says Arliss Howard in the press notes for the film. “Once the bread is involved, it is no longer turkey, it is a sandwich; and if you make turkey salad, it is something else again, and if you add mayo, humus, lettuce, salsa, if you broil it, slice it, well the idea is in there somewhere, and it gets more confusing if you see a wild turkey take flight, more so if you are walking with a three-year-old. What I mean to say is that Larry Brown understood this, having adapted his own work for the stage and screen.”
    That quote sums up the feel of the movie — tangential, and just a bit off-center. Arliss Howard directs and stars as Vietnam vet Leon Barlow, a drunken writer struggling to piece together the broken shards of his life, turning his personal experiences into deeply felt fiction. As the rejected manuscripts pile up around him, he must also deal with the demands of his ex-wife (Debra Winger), his children, and his war buddy and only friend (Paul LeMat). He's a self-centered man who struggles to balance his creative life — a need to write — with the wants and needs of those in his life. Even after catching up on his child support and alimony, and earning a weekend with his kids, he is left feeling empty and saddened with his ex-wife's lack of caring. His internal tussles, coupled with a mother (Angie Dickenson) who regards him as a disappointment and a personal tragedy, cause him to spiral downward.
    Leon is a failure on almost every level — certainly personally and professionally — and Howard doesn't shy away from his protagonist's shortcomings. In one heartbreaking scene he has a drunken Barlow watch his wedding video — backwards. In the beginning we see him and Marilyn kissing and hugging, and as the film slowly reverses through the ceremony we see him waiting at the altar, and then wandering through the graveyard by the church. The way he sees it, even on “the happiest day of his life” he still wound up alone.
    The movie is (Howard's real-life wife) Debra Winger's return to film after an absence of six years, and serves as a reminder of what a skilled screen actress she is. Her portrayal of Marilyn is as memorable when she is speaking as it is when she is still. In one scene she tells Barlow, “I went out to collect the laundry and I just couldn't make it. I'm too tired. I'm just lying here listening to the rain.” The camera lingers on her face after the dialogue, and the look on her face is one of a woman at the end of her rope. In her silence we learn more about her character than we do in anything she says.
    Big Bad Love
is a meandering, surreal (check out the cow with the typewriter) look at the creative process, and how one man messed up his life. “Someone asked me what the movie is about,” says Howard. “I said ‘birth, death, love, work, friendship . . . pick 'em.' And trains.” It's a well-crafted directorial debut from Howard who handles this quiet tale of an artist's redemption with a firm hand.
    BIGGIE AND TUPAC (2002)
    â€œIf this had been some ordinary drive-by shooting by some inexperienced gang-bangers we would've solved it a long time ago. You've got to think to yourself, ‘Who could do this and get away with it?'”
    â€” Ex-LAPD Detective Russell Poole
    Your enjoyment of
Biggie and Tupac
will be directly related to your enjoyment of director Nick Broomfield and his bumbling