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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Nearly Split a... laughed myself silly, 29 April 2000 Author: NBulanski from Michigan
I feel sorry for the people that said they were bored during this movie and that was the only thing they had to say about it. This movie was a wonderful fantasy in which Plympton used the animated media to its highest potential. This movie does have something to offend just about everyone, from extreme profanity, extreme violence, to bizarre (but funny) sex scenes to quoting Hermann Goring?? The bird sex scene in the opening probably did a good job offending most of the population and let you know there was a really raunchy good time ahead; the facial expressions were great! Another great part to look for is when one character watches the "How To Make Love To A Woman" video. There was one segment I rewound the tape three times and STILL couldn't hear what was said because I was laughing SO HARD! WONderful movie and such an improvement over "The Tune".
6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :- Well, love IS strange..., 22 June 2000 Author: RobT-2 from Tulsa, Oklahoma
I've been a fan of Bill Plympton's ever since first seeing his Oscar-nominated short "Your Face" about 12 years ago as part of the traveling International Tournee of Animation. Plympton started out as a magazine cartoonist (an early version of "How to Kiss" was published in "Rolling Stone" in the early 80's), and his early short films were based around single gags or concepts. On the basis of these shorts I knew Plympton's animation was kind of primitive, that he had excellent timing, and that he had a flair for metamorphosis and the grotesque that recalled such distinguished predecessors as Otto Messmer and Tex Avery. Unfortunately, I found Plympton's first feature, "The Tune", rather disappointing. The story was weak, and the best parts were the shorts that were incorporated into the feature ("Wiseman", "Push Comes to Shove").With this in mind, I approached "I Married a Strange Person" with some trepidation. I'd heard some good things about it, and it was such a shock to find it for rent here in Tulsa that I snatched it up right away. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, so much so that I had a hard time figuring out just what I liked about the movie. All the usual virtues of Plympton's animation are there, and the story starts out nicely enough-a new bridegroom gets zapped in an accident involving a satellite dish and a pair of over-amorous birds, giving him strange and wondrous powers.What made the story work at first were the appealing characters set within it, the new husband Grant and wife Kerry. Most of the time their actions and reactions were very believable, whether the situation was realistic (the sexual tension between the newlyweds at the beginning-she's in the mood for love, he feels he's got to work overtime to support them) or fantastic (Kerry's alarm, and later anger, when Grant's stray imaginings begin coming to spectacular life). The quality of the animation and design helped, giving depth and texture to Plympton's characteristic style without making it unnecessarily slick. Tom Larson and Charis Michelsen, who voiced Grant and Kerry respectively, deserve considerable credit as well. Maureen McElheron's songs don't hurt either; where much of "The Tune" seemed to be an excuse for the songs, here the songs served the story by setting the mood. I especially liked "Honey How'd You Get So Cute", which (along with Plympton's animation) effectively captured some of the playfully absurd aspects of eroticism.Unfortunately, the quirky romantic fantasy at the beginning gets shunted aside when an unscrupulous media mogul learns about Grant's new powers and sends a paramilitary squad to capture him. This plot device reminds me of Disney's old comic fantasies-not the animated ones, the live-action ones, the ones with Fred MacMurray or Dean Jones or Kurt Russell as the hero and usually Keenan Wynn as the villain and they also had sentient-or-flying cars or teenaged computers-or-sheepdogs or stuff that bounced higher than the height from which it was dropped. Actually, I dug those films when I was a kid, and I bet Bill Plympton liked them too, but he does little to vary their formula when he applies it here, apart from dollops of sex and violence and a bit of satire.The plot also threatens to derail the characterizations that were established so well in the first part. Simply, all scenes where the characters' actions follow from their previous behavior work; when a scene doesn't work, it's usually because a character's integrity has been violated for the sake of a gag or the convenience of the plot. I don't know if this means Plympton and/or his collaborator P. C. Vey are still learning how to maintain a story at feature-length, or if they just couldn't resist their impulses to go for quick and dirty laughs, or both.Nonetheless, despite its flawed or hackneyed aspects, "I Married a Strange Person" is very watchable as a whole film. It is also evidence that Plympton and company have a really great film in them somewhere. Let's hope they put it all together next time.
4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Waaaa hooo!!!, 8 November 1998 Author: from Berkeley, CA, USA
Yes, there are a few dull parts. I will admit that. However, there are also parts that will make you wish you had gone to the bathroom a few minutes ago, before you started laughing so hard that your bladder's about to burst. And then you start thinking about you bladder bursting. And just what it would look like. And you laugh harder. Then you want to go home and check what's really in the back of those wall sockets...Good movie. Not the greatest in the world, but very good.Jason
5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :- A wild and wacky ride, 24 September 2000 Author: filmsarmy from London, England
I caught this movie by accident at 2am and found it highly entertaining. It dashes from one scene to the next at a rate of knots. The animation is good and it is very refreshing to see an adult oriented cartoon despite the bizarre nature of the story. I'll be watching out for more by Bill Plympton in the future.
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Likely Bill Plympton's best work, 17 August 2001 Author: Dan Harkless from Irvine, California
I've been a fan of Bill Plympton since I first saw one of his shorts in a late-80s animation festival, and to me, "I Married a Strange Person!" is his best work. It's possible that I've missed something better -- I've seen many/most of his shorts, but only one other of his long-form works, "The Tune". This film, to me, is much funnier and more memorable than "The Tune", though not as deep, I suppose.Fans of the "splatstick" horror/comedy genre should enjoy this film, as it uses over-the-top gore to similar comedic effect. Don't get the impression that this is a film in the vein of "Lupo The Butcher" or something, though, with ultra-violence being used for ultra-violence's sake. Plympton's imagination is FAR too vivid for that to be the case.I'd have to say, in fact, that Plympton has the most unique and active imagination of any visual artist I'm familiar with, and this film is a great showcase for it, since the plot concerns a special brain lobe that causes imagination to become reality.Apart from the comedic gore, there are hilarious looks at sex. What Plympton has done for quitting smoking and other topics in his shorts, he does here for sex. Everything from people to animals to inanimate objects are seen engaging in the act here, to comic effect. One of the most imaginative images is the upper receptacle in an electrical outlet banging the lower receptacle from behind (with the three-prong receptacles having become faces).Another thing to mention is the film's great score. Funny, catchy, toe-tapping tunes that you'll feel like you've heard somewhere before.To sum up, buy this film! If you're at all a fan of animation or semi-risque comedy, you're sure to love it.
4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- Funny but too long, 23 January 2000 Author: Gitte from Denmark
I've always found Plympton's animations intriguing (and at times a bit disgusting, but I mean that in the nicest possible way). I agree with other reviewers on this page that Plympton's style may not be too well-suited for a full-length movie, as I was quite bored at regular intervals. However, if you're into his style and sense of humour (which means that you don't mind gratuitous violence and sex scenes) you should get a kick out of this one. I found myself laughing out loud a couple of times (for instance, at the sex/balloon animals scene), and any movie that makes you do that deserves a pat on the back :).
3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :- Weirdness for weirdness' sake, 3 January 2002 Author: Captain Ed from Minnesooooooooota
I love Bill Plympton's animation. I remember going to animation festivals in the early-to-mid 80's and his short-shorts being a staple. He has an active imagination, his work shows movement at all times, and his artwork even approaches beauty in its own way.That all being said, this is a movie that could have been. The trademark Bill Plympton weirdness is all there, and it's really all the film is about. This could have easily been a twenty-minute short, and probably should have been. The same plot actions are repeated over and over again, simply to give Plympton opportunities to be more weird. These pieces -- in themselves -- are fascinating, but it makes the entire movie crawl. There IS a plot, it's just very underdeveloped.I'd still recommend it to Plympton fans, but anyone else will be extremely annoyed.
2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :- Pure Plymptonian Madness!, 6 March 2001 Author: Matt Huls (cowman777@hotmail.com) from Westland, MI, USA
After newlywed businessman Grant Boyer is electrocuted by his satelite dish, he develops a strange lump on the back of his neck that gives him the power to bring his crazy thoughts and fantasies into reality. Of course, since this is a Plympton film, you can safely assume that this is merely an excuse to load the movie with lots of blood, sex, talking animals, bulging eyeballs, and more detached limbs than you can count. While extremely imaginative, well-animated, and generally fun to watch, the film runs its course within the first half-hour or so. Plympton is an amazing artist, but his art is best viewed in short-film form.
3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :- A definite watch-looker, 12 October 1998 Author: DaJ from Outside the Vortex
I find Bill Plympton's animation on MTV to be interesting. Having said that, I think this theatrical release proves that his work is best limited to the short format. Numerous times during the screening, I found myself looking at my watch and marvelling that only five more minutes had passed since the last time I looked. The jerky animation had only a little to do with it; it was just simply not all that interesting as a whole. Not bad, but definitely not all that good either.
my duck-plucking-elf-eyeball fountain!, 3 February 2008 Author: TheatreX from Louisville, KY
I first saw Bill Plympton's work as part of an animation festival back in the 80's, ("How To Kiss", I believe) and then saw his work in subsequent festivals afterward, the most memorable being "How to Quit Smoking". He has a definite flair for the grotesque and just plain kinky and weird. "I Married A Strange Person" is the tale of newlyweds, one of whom has a strange growth on the back of his neck, which seems to have been caused by a beer can in a satellite dish. Of course, this strange growth give him mystical powers and the evil Smile Corporation is out to get the secret. This is wild, hilarious, gory, disgusting, and just plain fun, sometimes all at once. Throughout the film, Plympton runs off on tangents that have nothing to do with the basic storyline, but that's OK, it doesn't really detract from the experience. A blade of grass grows to human-size and chases down a guy with a lawnmower; a bunch of Smile Corporation goons blow up several items in a hayseed's lawn display, including his terracotta donkey and his "duck-plucking-elf-eyeball fountain", and so on. All in all, very weird stuff and maybe not appealing to those unfamiliar with Plymton's earlier work. I thought this was absolutely stunning & a hell of a lot of fun. 8 out of 10 stars.
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