Movies
Permanent Midnight
The confessional memoir of TV comedy writer Jerry Stahl, transferred to the screen by fledgling director David Veloz, is one of those cathartic substance-abuse stories that Hollywood likes to tell itself now and again, telling itself at the same time that this is a well-marked path to Dostoevskian depths. These stories, no matter how fascinating they must be to the people who live them, are pretty much all alike, although there has perhaps never been a moment precisely like the orgasmic vocalization of a cocktail-lounge pickup who identifies herself as Dagmar from Dresden: "My God! My God! I'm being fucked by a Jew!" The central role of the crack addict affords Ben Stiller a chance to show what he can really do on screen, which turns out to be just what he has shown already, and no more. He is very convincing when lying and bullshitting (arguing to a studio production head, for instance, that the Mr. Chompers extraterrestrial puppet is a modern Tom Joad), but the ecstasies and agonies of hard drugs are embarrassingly out of his reach. Blame the drugs. With Elizabeth Hurley, Maria Bello, Cheryl Ladd. 1998.
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MPAA Rating: R