15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good ol' Gray...with something new!, November 22, 1998
By A Customer
As good as or better than "Swimming to Cambodia" and "Monster in a Box", except this time there is more. Surreal sceneries and sounds are added for effect, as well as short testimonials by "people on the street" describing their own unusual eye ailments. Gray always fascinated me...his unique perspective on life and the way he deals with it. I would also recommend reading "Impossible Vacation" (the subject of "Monster in a Box"). Very few books can affect me like that did.
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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Spalding Gray at his best, August 3, 2000
Incredible writer and monologuist Spalding Gray takes us on an incredible journey, around the world and through his soul. Though based on his his attempts to avoid dangerous eye surgery, the story is really about meeting fascinating characters and Gray's own fascinating neuroses. If the idea of a monologue sounds boring to you -- basically Gray sitting and telling you a story -- I especially challenge you to try this out.
While dry, Gray's humor keeps you laughing out loud. You'll find it mesmerizing, and at the end of your own journey through the film, changed for the better. Highly recommended.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Feast for the Middle Aged Male, March 22, 2004
This review is from: Gray's Anatomy (DVD)
Spalding Gray's death has left us poorer than when we started. How evident this is after viewing this edgy, moving, often riotous monologue directed by Stephen Soderbergh.
A macular "pucker" leaves Gray virtually blind in one eye. Born into Christian Science, Gray leaves the church when his CS practitioner demands he renounce allopathic medicine to receive help. Gray's breathless journeys through alternative healing remind us that we all face mortality at any cost, and that no religious or philosopical system will spare us the inevitability of suffering or dying.
What I loved most about this film were Gray's frequent outbursts of humor -- framed in frustration, delivered in sentences which resonate like poetry in the mind, this guy rages -- quite literally -- against the dying of the light. And I would add that this is a film best viewed late at night.
While Soderbergh's direction is occasionally heavy-handed and self- conscious, it is still creative and ambitious and will never disqualify this film from classic status.
The movie doesn't benefit from the opening montage of "eye horror stories" delivered by subjects who almost lost their sight, and who occasionally make an unwelcome visit into Gray's monologue. Happily, Gray gets 'round them.
The man had a brilliant, brilliant mind and a great heart. Watch this, and the only thing you risk is awareness of his absence, and it is a sad feeling.
I just loved this movie, or should I say: I loved this mirror.
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