Ghoulumbe Better than most people think

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

framptonhollis Like the greatest, most professional poet, Spalding Gray tells him stories at a swift, rhythmic pace that is exciting and brilliant all at once. With his pitch perfect timing and comedic wit, he weaves together here a masterpiece of the monologue as he recounts his bizarre, eye opening (yes, pun intended) adventure after he discovered he had an eye problem. Rather than simply accepting a surgery (he really doesn't like it when the doctors refer to their work as "scraping"), he attempts to work out alternative methods, which range from an all raw vegetable diet to traveling to the Philippians to visit a so called "psychic surgeon". As a master of the monologue, Gray tells this story miraculously well. He writes with a beautiful and distinct quality. Through his storytelling, he expresses himself in a truly unique and entertaining way, packing this one man show with laughs and personality.I must also praise the director, the famous Steven Soderbergh, who morphs this monologue into a visually stunning art film. Using music, sound, sets, props, camera movement, shadows, and plenty of other fascinating, experimental techniques, he turns Gray's witty writings into a much more cinematic and epic adventure that truly captures Gray's quirky and strange view of life.

annmason1 Wow, a great film. It is one of a kind, so I can't compare it to anything else. Those of us from the 60s who knew the weirdos Spaulding consulted, especially enjoyed the film. His ability to enter the skin of so many characters instantly, while still looking at them from the outside, is a real gift. He is not sarcastic. He "likes to learn things" and hence in this film we find him raking leaves in a Hassidic synagogue, "eye"ing Japanese psychic surgery patients whisking around an operating table; gasping for air, his mouth pressed to the bottom of a sweat lodge tent; and in one particularly hilarious segment, submitting to treatment by a seriously nearsighted "nutritional optometrist." I loved this movie. It is a riveting example of storytelling, of the power of one human voice to mesmerize the rest of us.

MisterWhiplash I saw this film a couple of times when it aired on cable, and didn't really know who the director was at the time. I recognized Spalding Gray, as I had seen at least one other of his one-man monologue movie/shows that pop up every now and again on TV. His style of telling stories is sardonic, sad, a tinge in the cynical, always pointing out idiosyncrasies when he can, and always with a sense of the truth. When I found out that this particular one, Gray's Anatomy, was directed by Steven Soderbergh, it finally made sense. Because the style of the project fits the rest of the director's oeuvre without a misstep. It might not be one his great films, but he makes material that should, in what would really be the right reason, be on a stage somewhere off-Broadway (not off-off but not on it either) into something much more compelling for the screen. He uses a combination of varied angles, experimental lighting with colored filters, lenses, the lengths messed up, and messes with light and dark. His DP, Elliot Davis, also a very good asset on Out of Sight, makes this a key part of the engrossment (or what might be for others a distance) in the material. And of course the editing makes one pay attention to bits more closely than others, or accentuates some of the points that Gray makes. The music chimes in unconventionally as well. In this particular case, Gray is talking about health, but more than anything his own as he goes through the process of going to doctors, finding out his illness, getting it cured, et all. But it's not really all that simple, due to some of Gray's own neuroses and other bits of problems that come up, one or two his though mostly on the end of the eccentric doctors and others along his trip. This is not all, however, because through this story of fixing a real medical problem, it off-shoots into bits of topics about New York, Judaism, and his family. Soderbergh understands more than anything the mind-set of a guy like Gray, what he might have had, and the best a director like he can do is keep up with the sparks in the material. It's a good one man-show given better directorial treatment. It flirts with overkill in the style (only so much one man can take even in 80 minutes), but in the end after seeing it more than once I felt comfortable not just with the style but, more importantly, Gray himself. It's like style in a three-legged race to the finish with the substance, as the quirks in each threaten to tumble on another over. And, to be sure, it's under the radar enough in the indie-world to keep its ambitions only so reaching. B+

madhater_da_killa Possibly the most easily accesable of the Spalding Gray monologue-film library Gray's Anatomy chronicles Gray's retinal pucker problems. The interesting camera work and rather unique (in regards to the rest of the Gray Monologue Films) keeping a good feeling of progression. This progression can be found somewhat lacking by new-comers to the monologue scene, and thus this film solves a good deal of viewing problems in this simple aspect. The second aspect that makes this film highly accesible by new-comers in the stories told by the average Joe's. There are some good stories, some bad stories, and some disturbing stories; but none of the clips are allowed to stagnate by Soderburgh. This is probably the most powerful of the two aspects especially when teamed with the cuts from The Killing Fields give Gray's Anatomy a much more action oriented feeling than Monster in A Box or Spalding Gray Is Swimming To Cambodia. Gray's Anatomy is a good introduction to Spalding Gray but falls short of his earlier classics while remaining a film most definitely worthy of viewing. I would give it three and a half stars out of five where as Swimming and Monster I would give a four.