Netflix

I'm not sure why I came back to this after 15 years; at 21 I thought My Dinner With Andre was the bomb after numerous bong hits of Harford County skunk bud--at 36 perhaps it's my recent salvia experiences that made me curious...Or, it could be the My Dinner With Andre video game, played by Martin at the beginning of a Simpsons episode. He eagerly pushes the Tell Me More button again and again, and perhaps that decided me to add this to my Netflix queue.

I dunno. I guess I still like this film, and still think it's good, but I'm less enthusiastic about its pretentious facile New-Aginess. Andre reminds me of guys I've met at Green Party events who immediately start confessing their turgid, vacuous life stories. Like I need to hear about your suicidal thoughts and your bipolar meds five minutes after we meet!

When folks speak of My Dinner with Andre they often refer to "the art of conversation," as if the film portrays a discussion of some sort. Basically Andre goes off on a Joe Campbell riff for two hours, and Wally prompts him to continue now and again by saying "And then what happened?" I think what Andre needs in his life is a bully, not a sycophant. Somebody should give him an Indian burn or a noogie or a wet willy and tell him to shut the fuck up--that'll cure him more than improvising with stuffed teddy bears and Polish actresses in the woods, or trying to do theater in the Sahara with a Buddhist monk.

Yeah, it's worth seeing if you like this sort of thing, "this sort of thing" being art-house pseudo-intellectual spiritualist stuff just a bit more sophisticated than that Wayne Dyer guy on PBS. Otherwise, run for the hills.

Oh, the DVD transfer SUCKS. It's worse than the VHS I had back in the day.