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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
2009 · Film · 123 min
Directed by Terry Gilliam
After a carnival troupe saves his life, a man agrees to help its immortal leader collect five souls and win a bet with the devil.
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2 comments on Hacker News
I'm a big Gilliam fan, but in my opinion his movies have gotten worse and worse since Time Bandits, Brazil, 12 Monkeys, and The Fisher King.
There's something of his charming sensibility in even the worst of his films, and they're worth watching for die-hard Gilliam fans like myself, but even the best of his later films (like the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) are a pale shadow of the brilliance of his early output.
> You can see this most clearly in the Metacritic for Tideland which is pretty positive as far as user submitted reviews go, but is one of the worst movies ever if you were to go off the critics reviews.
The problem is, critics are usually right, and the audience usually isn't. This is because critics have studied film, often went to film school, and can point out just exactly how a film fails.
That being said, Gilliam is the rare exception, and I do believe it is because of that ineffable quality about him and his directorial style. Maybe it's because I grew up with it, but "Time Bandits" is still one of my favorite films of all time. "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" was not really very well made, but it's still distinctly Gilliamesque, and it actually works around the death of Heath Ledger very adroitly. "Zero Theroem" was also a bit disappointing, but it's still at least different, not your usual Hollywood schlock.
"Brazil" was Gilliam par excellence; I am hopeful his take on Quixote is good, but even if it isn't, it will almost definitely be interesting.