Dreams with Sharp Teeth (2008)

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Director:

Erik Nelson

Writer:

Erik Nelson (writer)

Release Date:

4 June 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Plot:

A documentary on speculative fiction writer and essayist Harlan Ellison. |

Plot Keywords:

Writer | Television | Screenwriter | Anti Conformity | Controversy

Cast

Harlan Ellison	...	Himself
Robin Williams	...	Himself
Neil Gaiman	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter David	...	Himself
Ronald D. Moore	...	Himself
Josh Olson	...	Himself
Tom Snyder	...	Himself (archive footage)

Runtime:

USA:96 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Creative Differences

Trivia:

Director Nelson was only 24 when he first videotaped Ellison at a typewriter for a March 1981 PBS documentary about science fiction and fantasy writers - footage that is included in this film

Quotes:

Harlan Ellison: [pointing to metal shelving] These are my extra typewriters.
Robin Williams: [laughing loudly] This is like an ammunition dump!
Harlan Ellison: Well, yeah, I use typewriters. They're all Olympias, and I have all my typewriter ribbons in the refrigerator.

Even if you don't know a thing about him, it's funny and revealing of human nature

I had the privilege of watching this with two other people who saw Harlan Ellison with me at a now legendary appearance in the late 80's in Toronto, and we kept looking at each other and snickering. But even if you never saw him live, read any of his work, or had any familiarity with him at all, you can appreciate this documentary as being about a man WORTHY of a documentary. He's just that bloody entertaining.

The soundtrack - by Richard Thompson, the legendary Brit folkie - is amazing, by the way.

Some of the camera work is really amateurish, but most of the straight interview footage is well shot. The camera work and the parts that got left out of Ellison's bio - probably in deference to his storied litigiousness - are what knocked this down to 8 out of 10.

His initial 'interview' with Robin Williams is worth watching even if you can't spend the time on the rest of the movie. Within minutes we were all helplessly laughing.

If you're at all interested in SF, either literary or media, movies, have a love affair with the English language or just want to see what it's like to be a legendary, visionary, prolific, brilliant and uncompromising pain in the rear, see this film. I intend to watch it again as some of the dialogue went by so fast I missed it, and it was really, really funny.