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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 79376
Released: September 24, 2002 |
| Our Price: $3.55 |
| Used Price: $0.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and three-time OscarÂ(r) nominee* Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment) "achieve a tempestuous chemistry" (E! Online) in this alternately poignantand funny film based on the stories of Mississippi writer Larry Brown. Co-starring Rosanna Arquette, Paul Le Mat and Angie Dickinson, Big Bad Love is "blazingly alive, admirable [and] marvelously cinematic" (The Hollywood Reporter)! A sexy publisher reads submissions on horseback. A house floods with the tears of an overprotective grandma. And a soldier braves a minefield to bring a toy to his kid. But nothing in the fantasy life of alcoholic writer Leon Barlow (Howard) can compare with his reality. From a fiery relationship with his ex-wife (Winger) to enough rejectionslips to spell out the word "failure," it's no wonder Leon escapes into his imagination until a tragedy forces him to focus on tying his two estranged worlds back together. *1993: Actress, Shadowlands; 1983: Actress, Terms of Endearment; 1982: Actress, An Officer and a Gentleman
Description of Big Bad Love:
Husband and wife Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment, An Officer and a Gentleman) star in Big Bad Love, a fragmented adaptation of stories by Southern writer Larry Brown. Leon Barlow (Howard) is a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking, long-haired, and deeply unhappy aspiring writer who pulls a dozen rejection slips out of his mailbox every day. He fights with his ex-wife Marilyn (Winger) over his undependability, helps his best friend Monroe (Paul Le Mat) paint a house, and generally tries to get through his life with some semblance of purpose. The struggle of everyday life is well balanced by vivid realizations of Barlow's dreams, fantasies, and fleeting thoughts. Just at the point when the vague plot of Big Bad Love threatens to become maddening, the movie crystallizes with a tragedy that brings the underlying grief into focus. A messy but deeply felt movie. --Bret Fetzer
Big Bad Love Reviews:
The Angst of Arliss 
2007-03-14 - If everything in your life is going well, you'll likely regard this story as somewhat frustrating. For once could you NOT be drunk, Barlow?? But if you have unfulfilled dreams and are struggling without sympathy or support, and face it, most of us have been there at one time or another, then you'll find this one of the most compelling, engaging stories ever. The character of Leon Barlow (Arliss Howard) is both complex and perplexing. You'll want to watch this more than once. And get the sound track too -- awesome music!
Don't forget Larry 
2006-03-22 - I bought this DVD for my brother's birthday because he has almost all of Larry Brown's books (as does my wife) and neither had heard of "Big Bad Love". To me this movie is more about Larry Brown than Arliss Howard or Debra Winger, who most of the critics discuss rather than its resemblance to an autobiography of Brown.
If you have read any of Brown's books, you will soon realize that you probably can't get through all of them -- too much this, or too much that, as your tastes dictate. So it is with this movie. Winger gives the movie credibility and is probably the best reason to see it.
For those of you who think the movie setting is hokum, leave the University campus and take a quick swing around Oxford where Brown lived and worked until his untimely death. Mixed in with all the ante bellum homes, oak lined boulevards, new mansions, University professors, Faulkner festivals and professional people, you will find just the kind of people and neighborhoods portrayed in this movie.
Big Bad Love Good
2006-02-23 - Unusually good adaptation of a set of stories by Larry Brown, strung together into a good script and very well acted on all accounts. If you're a struggling writer, it will make you laugh, and then you'll be back into your normal depression at how the publishing mill spits out great writers in favor of hacks every day.
Never getting used to rejection 
2006-01-30 - "Some dreams ruin being awake if you know the difference. Best not to know."
In high school I spent the night over at a friend's house. We lived out in the country. He wanted to watch "Pink Floyd: The Wall." He said you had to be on drugs to really get it. He didn't have any drugs, but he said if we watched the movie really late at night, being half-awake and half-asleep, that it might give the same experience. Watching "Big Bad Love" reminded me of that night, even though I watched it wide awake on a Sunday afternoon. It's what "The Wall" might've been if Roger Waters had been a writer who'd grown up in Mississippi.
I think I needed to read Larry Brown's book of short stories before I watched this so I could have better appreciated the film's narrative. Halfway through, I gave up trying to connect with any of the multiple storylines and started watching it as an expressionist portrait of a writer's struggle. This is Arliss (Men Don't Leave) Howard's directorial debut -- he also plays the main character, Barlow. Howard has been acting for over twenty years, and this seems like a film packed with all the ideas from a notebook kept during that time of scenes he'd want to direct whenever he got the opportunity. Those scenes are gorgeously shot, and are filled with powerful small moments - the opening sex scene with Marilyn (Debra Winger) in a bathtub wearing a wedding gown, Barlow and best friend Monroe (Paul Le Mat) chasing after the Flasher in their pick-up truck, the scenes with Rosanna Arquette -- but the overall narrative structure is so disjointed that it made it difficult for me to become emotionally engaged with anyone other than Barlow. This is a shame because the supporting players all deliver strong performances that are all lost in Barlow's detached, tormented, inebriated perspective. Then again, maybe that's the point. Howard inhabits Barlow on the screen and behind the camera. There's a tragedy late in the story that provides some focus, but the film never really loses its hallucinatory feel.
Also, the soundtrack is worth checking out if you're into eclectic blues. In the film, there's a scene in a bar featuring the late R.L. Burnside performing "Snake Drive" as Barlow punches some guy's lights out.
Didn't know what to expect
2004-10-21 - I've read some Larry Brown novels but not the short story this movie was based on -- this might have been a good thing. I had no particular expectations, except that the movie would be about a writer and that, as with other Brown characters, the writer would be frustrated and maybe drunk.
I'm *not* a writer, so this is hard for me to explain -- but watching Big Bad Love was like being in Brown's head. What a great experience. I can't think of any other film that's done this. I enjoyed every second, and I'd like to thank Arliss Howard and everyone involved for doing it.
