Breakfast of Champions
"Breakfast of Champions", with Bruce Willis, Albert Finney, Barbara Hershey, Glenne Headly, Nick Nolte, Lukas Haas; with walk-ons by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Tom Robbins. Directed by Alan Rudolph, screenplay by Alan Rudolph, based on a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. MPAA Rating R, run time about 2 years.
I was late in coming over to appreciate Kurt Vonnegut. In fact I've been late for just about everything before and since, but I didn't discover Kurt Vonnegut until Breakfast of Champions - the novel - was published. I was taken by Vonnegut's charming willingness to not take himself very seriously - Breakfast of Champions is peppered with childishly simple pen and ink drawings of sphincters, floating banners, beavers, and the office cartoon "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!"
Vonnegut also writes in a choppy style that while simple, is extremely illustrative. His writing never gets in the way of his characters' lives. So it goes.
Maybe I'm too fond of Vonnegut, the writer to be very objective about derivative moovies, or maybe I expect too much from moovies to begin with. In either case, "Breakfast of Champions" is a major disappointment. I really wanted to like this moovie - I've been waiting impatiently for its release for the better part of a year. I should have known. It's been on the film festival circuit since last winter, and nobody seemed to know it was out there. Even Vonnegut, who was featured recently on an NPR radio program asked, "What happened to my moovie?"
The basic fault with "Breakfast of Champions" isn't casting. Bruce Willis (Dwayne Hoover) is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors in the trenches. Nick Nolte is not a bad iteration of Harry LeSabre, the cross-dressing car salesman, even if he does share a name with a Buick. And the only way that Albert Finney (Kilgore Trout) could have been any better would be if he had told Punjab to go buy out the eight o'clock show and bellowed "Let's all go to the moovies!"
No, the fault with "Breakfast" is that it just wasn't very well thought out. There is no way to tell what the characters are thinking, who they are, why they do what they do, and what they expect to accomplish when they get finished doing it. It was simply a crashing bore of the first magnitude, and if there's one thing I know about, it's how to be a crashing bore. It shares the nervous pointlessness of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" without benefit of hallucinogens, and teeters on the edge of a pantomime Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd showdown staged in the final act of of a rural high school production of "Waiting for Godot". Nothing happens. And then, sure as hell, it happens some more. I would have gladly sat through a three hour cut of "Breakfast" if they had just developed the characters even a little.
I believe that there is a measure of charm in even the worst of moovies. Well, Happy Birthday, Wanda June - "Breakfast" may have some of that charm lurking somewhere, but I don't remember seeing it
If you're a fan of Vonnegut, by all means, go see "Breakfast of Champions". You owe it to yourself. If, however, you just want to go to the moovies and spend a reasonably enjoyable evening, you might be better off with "Fight Club".
No cows were harmed in the making of "Breakfast of Champions", and no cows is exactly what it deserves.
I was late in coming over to appreciate Kurt Vonnegut. In fact I've been late for just about everything before and since, but I didn't discover Kurt Vonnegut until Breakfast of Champions - the novel - was published. I was taken by Vonnegut's charming willingness to not take himself very seriously - Breakfast of Champions is peppered with childishly simple pen and ink drawings of sphincters, floating banners, beavers, and the office cartoon "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!"
Vonnegut also writes in a choppy style that while simple, is extremely illustrative. His writing never gets in the way of his characters' lives. So it goes.
Maybe I'm too fond of Vonnegut, the writer to be very objective about derivative moovies, or maybe I expect too much from moovies to begin with. In either case, "Breakfast of Champions" is a major disappointment. I really wanted to like this moovie - I've been waiting impatiently for its release for the better part of a year. I should have known. It's been on the film festival circuit since last winter, and nobody seemed to know it was out there. Even Vonnegut, who was featured recently on an NPR radio program asked, "What happened to my moovie?"
The basic fault with "Breakfast of Champions" isn't casting. Bruce Willis (Dwayne Hoover) is quickly becoming one of my favorite actors in the trenches. Nick Nolte is not a bad iteration of Harry LeSabre, the cross-dressing car salesman, even if he does share a name with a Buick. And the only way that Albert Finney (Kilgore Trout) could have been any better would be if he had told Punjab to go buy out the eight o'clock show and bellowed "Let's all go to the moovies!"
No, the fault with "Breakfast" is that it just wasn't very well thought out. There is no way to tell what the characters are thinking, who they are, why they do what they do, and what they expect to accomplish when they get finished doing it. It was simply a crashing bore of the first magnitude, and if there's one thing I know about, it's how to be a crashing bore. It shares the nervous pointlessness of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" without benefit of hallucinogens, and teeters on the edge of a pantomime Bugs Bunny / Elmer Fudd showdown staged in the final act of of a rural high school production of "Waiting for Godot". Nothing happens. And then, sure as hell, it happens some more. I would have gladly sat through a three hour cut of "Breakfast" if they had just developed the characters even a little.
I believe that there is a measure of charm in even the worst of moovies. Well, Happy Birthday, Wanda June - "Breakfast" may have some of that charm lurking somewhere, but I don't remember seeing it
If you're a fan of Vonnegut, by all means, go see "Breakfast of Champions". You owe it to yourself. If, however, you just want to go to the moovies and spend a reasonably enjoyable evening, you might be better off with "Fight Club".
No cows were harmed in the making of "Breakfast of Champions", and no cows is exactly what it deserves.
