Tomorrow’s Camp
May 7th, 2008Permanent Midnight, currently viewable on hulu stars Ben Stiller as a scenery-chewing heroin addict/comedy writer. I watched this the other day and AV commented that in ten years, it could enjoy the camp status of a Road House.
It’s a total hambone over-the-top example of the 90s “heroin chic” movie… the music cues, Stiller’s “heroin face,” repeated sex montages, the non-linear storyline, and not just jump cuts but “jump dissolves”. Also, everyone and their sister plays a bit part in it—Owen Wilson, Fred Willard, Janeane Garafalo, Andy Dick, Liz Torres, Sandra Oh (for one line). It’s almost a dramatic “Reality Bites.”
Then, reading the credits we found out it came out in 1998, which is inexcusable. We were convinced by cliches that it must have come out before Trainspotting (96), Bottle Rocket (96), and maybe even The Ben Stiller Show (90).
By the end, AV dropped the Road House comparison, because unlike that genius film which shifts into insanity overdrive in the last act, Permanent Midnight down-shifts into boringness after a promising showing out of the gate.