The gloriously gaga opening scene expertly sets the tone for the incredible, jaw-dropping, incessant and often excruciatingly riotous eccentricity to come: A silhouetted nighttime profile shot of chronically kooky and uncompromising consummate flake thesp Crispin Glover, wearing a flowing blonde wig, wind whipping his hair about in undulating waves, stands astride a mountaintop lip-syncing to Olivia Newton-John's forlorn pop ballad "Please Don't Keep Me Waiting"! You see, Crispin's an awkward, ungainly, socially maladjusted jerkwater burg misfit with a secret hardcore infatuation with Olivia and her music, a closet fetish that's so extreme that Crispin actually dresses, acts, and -- oh gaa-wd! -- even sings just like Olivia. Worse yet, Glover even has a "Xanadu" poster on his bedroom wall! Crispin, after much fretting, decides to come out about his Olivia hang-up to the burg's stuffy, conservative, stubbornly set in their ways square citizens by impersonating Olivia -- he's got the wig on, plus bright red lipstick and black eyeliner! -- and belting out one of her tunes in a shrill, scratchy, piercing soprano wail at a local talent show that's going to be broadcast on television.
A very barbed and caustically funny 35 minute American Film Institute student movie project, "The Orkly Kid" doesn't pull any punches with its revealing exposure and mordant ridicule of the hidebound, close-minded, oppressively staid toe-the-line conformist mindset that's a rigid cornerstone of small town America ("This town's enough to drive a man nuts," Glover moans at one point), an uptight sensibility which leads to xenophobia and a gross inability to either tolerate or appreciate anyone courageous enough to break away from the restrictive conventional mold. Moreover, the film has the admirable guts to equate conformity with repressiveness, depicting Glover's amiable nonconformist oddball as the only person in the picture who's easygoing and enjoys life while the straight townies are sour, cranky and often down in the dumps unhappy frumps. Glover delivers a perfectly manic performance as the endearingly gonzo main character, with solid support from Stefan ("Fear No Evil") Arngrim as his sole friend (Crispin tries unsuccessfully to have Arngrim put on a gorilla suit and carry him off stage after he's done with his number!), the ever-adorable Elizabeth ("Valley Girl") Daily as a tarty diner waitress, and Courtney ("Children of the Corn") Gains as a local bullying hick. Glover and fellow marvelously idiosyncratic celluloid quirkmeister writer/director Trent Harris reteamed for the equally amusing and abrasive "Rubin and Ed."
A very barbed and caustically funny 35 minute American Film Institute student movie project, "The Orkly Kid" doesn't pull any punches with its revealing exposure and mordant ridicule of the hidebound, close-minded, oppressively staid toe-the-line conformist mindset that's a rigid cornerstone of small town America ("This town's enough to drive a man nuts," Glover moans at one point), an uptight sensibility which leads to xenophobia and a gross inability to either tolerate or appreciate anyone courageous enough to break away from the restrictive conventional mold. Moreover, the film has the admirable guts to equate conformity with repressiveness, depicting Glover's amiable nonconformist oddball as the only person in the picture who's easygoing and enjoys life while the straight townies are sour, cranky and often down in the dumps unhappy frumps. Glover delivers a perfectly manic performance as the endearingly gonzo main character, with solid support from Stefan ("Fear No Evil") Arngrim as his sole friend (Crispin tries unsuccessfully to have Arngrim put on a gorilla suit and carry him off stage after he's done with his number!), the ever-adorable Elizabeth ("Valley Girl") Daily as a tarty diner waitress, and Courtney ("Children of the Corn") Gains as a local bullying hick. Glover and fellow marvelously idiosyncratic celluloid quirkmeister writer/director Trent Harris reteamed for the equally amusing and abrasive "Rubin and Ed."