BUFFALO '66 (67) (no I can't change it to a 66) (second viewing: 72)

Directed by: Vincent Gallo

Starring: Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci, Ben Gazzara, Anjelica Huston

The Pitch: A congenital loser, fresh out of prison, kidnaps a girl and makes her pretend to be his wife in order to impress his parents, meanwhile planning his revenge on the football star whose missed kick led to his going to jail in the first place.

Theo Sez: Ricci to Gallo : "You're so weird". Not inappropriately, given that the theme is a damaged / abused young man's inability to connect with the world or other people, and his emotional healing at the hands of a good woman - make that a saintly woman, taking his abuse and treasuring his contradictions, an unconditionally loving, supportive combination of girlfriend, Mom and pal. The inequality in their relationship may make you want to scream, or at least mutter darkly about self-aggrandizing male fantasies, but the film is so determinedly offbeat, shot in a winking, often hilarious style, it's impossible to take at face value - just as it's impossible to accuse Gallo of rampant narcissism when he's so generous with his co-star, letting the camera linger on her face for minutes on end as she listens to his tirades. You might say it contrasts the furious complexity of searching for happiness with how simple that elusive quality actually is, our hero's (and the film's) jittery rhythms versus the placid beauty of the heroine's love for him : it's almost a (deliberate) self-parody, sending up the notion of Actorly "intensity", bringing on Gazzara as a potent reminder of Cassavetian Truth-through-conflict in a long, elaborate scene - yet the whole scene would collapse like a house of cards if the father simply hugged his son. Not so much bittersweet as bitter and sweet, a beguiling mix of snarling indie 'cool' and unabashedly sappy, love-is-all-you-need romanticism ; didn't really move me, something about it being vaguely off-putting (possibly the thought of lonely, inadequate men the world over stifling their sobs in darkened theatres, clenching their fists and nodding in fervent recognition), but it's certainly an original - and Gallo the actor, with his harrowed face, is among the wonders of our movie age. Somebody make that Rasputin biography already! [Second viewing, December 2015: The work of an eccentric autodidact who should've ended up (and almost does) with a trainwreck, but holds it all together with the strength of his pain and naive imagination. Talk of male fantasy is almost beside the point, since it's so obviously a male fantasy; one either has to accept it on its own terms or not at all imo.]