ridiculous rating

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Henry Darger. That is the name that hovers behind this 2002 documentary film, How To Draw A Bunny, by John Walter, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival, and details the life and wannabe legend of minor pop artist Ray Johnson (1927-1995). For those not in the know, Henry Darger was a hermit who, upon his death in the early 1970s, became a bit of a sensation when some bad artistes found and published excerpts from his lifelong continuing novel, with collages, about a make believe planet where naked girls with penises battled aliens who did not believe in Jesus Christ. The man's writing is uniformly terrible but, of course, the bad artistes that championed his work did so with such zeal that more mainstream and high profile artists, like singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant and poet John Ashbery, latched on to his brief flame of recognition by mentioning Darger in mediocre works of theirs.Naturally, Dargermania faded, for the truth is there was a very good reason Darger's fame was fleet. His work- both literarily and visually, sucked. This film tries to similarly hagiographize Johnson, by linking him with much better artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, who is one of many interviewees. Yet, like Darger, the bulk of Johnson's work was bad, really bad. Unlike Darger, however, Johnson- whose early 1995 suicide is treated as a mystery even if it seems utterly predictable given the man's narcissistic nature, actually had some artistic talent early on, even through some intriguing silhouette portraits. Of course, it dried up and Johnson went into collage- ala Darger, which even the most jaded of visual artists will be the first to admit is the genre that frauds inevitably turn to. Why? Because one can simply toss a bunch of random 'found' things together, claim it art by fiat, and a bunch of clueless acolytes and sycophants, who merely 'like' the artist personally, and know little of the creative process and art, will later rhapsodize about his 'pushing of boundaries', or other such banal nonsense. Naturally, when that artist leaps off into creative nihility or bankruptcy he cannot push boundaries, for to do so one must be within the art form.In this regard, Johnson is well in line with frauds such as Jackson Pollock and the Abstract Expressionists, the LANGUAGE poets, and dozens of other earlier –isms and Schools, which tried to substitute creative bankruptcy with hipster posing of one sort or another. When the Johnson acolytes speak reverently of his suicide off a bridge as a piece of performance art they verge on self-parody. If Walter really wanted to focus on an artist of worth who jumped off a bridge, would not the poet and critic Weldon Kees, whose death truly is a mystery, have been a much better subject?…. Yet, it would take a great filmmaker to make such a trite life interesting. Johnson's idea of wit includes apothegms like, 'Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow,' and his idea of 'art' includes Xeroxed grotesques of bunnies with his artsy pals' names on them, and collages called moticos- which lack any of the inventiveness or savvy of contemporaries like Warhol or Lichtenstein. Johnson's idea of 'political commentary' is images of celebrities as famous as James Dean and Elvis Presley, and as bizarre as Shelley Duvall- yet all adorned with Lucky Strike cigaret logos. The older he got the more seemingly demented and deluded he got. This is evidenced by such acts as letting a gullible acolyte videotape him doing nothing for several years, or dropping sixty foot long hot dogs over Riker's Island from a helicopter, or Magic Marking a cardboard box, then hopping about it on one foot while beating it with a belt. Of course, in the end, that old cliché- the death obsession, got to him, as it does so many wannabe artists who really masque their mental ills with their pretensions.Still, his gay lover and friends, like artist Jean-Claude (wife of Christo- the noted 'wrapper') ask such queries as why his work was not 'recognized' with a straight face, even as she and the others all speak of how 'nice' and 'honest' a guy he was because they simply have no way to realistically declaim his 'work' as having any real artistic value. Praising the person when speaking of an artist is always a giveaway as to the artist's lack of talent and accomplishment, much as is talking of the artist's 'intent', rather than 'accomplishment'. In this sense, Johnson was actually closer to a pre-Keith Haring Haring than a Henry Darger, much less an Andy Warhol- who, despite his persona, was an artist of- if not the first rank, certainly the second. Johnson was merely a mental case with some vague creative impulses, who never quite got his mental act together.The fact is, as mentioned earlier, that one cannot truly push an art's boundaries if one leaps wholly outside of it, and one's work has no real nor direct relation to its claimed art form. True originality comes only from within, and the multifarious ways that great artists use and reuse existing forms in new ways to achieve their ends. Simply put, Ray Johnson was neither good nor original. All that he did in his 'art' was done before and better by others. That the same can be said of his documentarian's film may be a small synchronicity, but that's all it is. What it is not is art.

The soundtrack is so annoying that I'm mainly just glad it's over. Wow. This has to be the most annoying soundtrack in a film ever. It's primarily this incredibly loud snare drum being pounded with paint brushes. It's a lot like 90 minutes of fingernails scraping against a chalkboard. A soundtrack is part of a movie, and, in this case, a large part of the movie. So, this movie is mostly annoying, and mostly because of the soundtrack.As for the other aspects of the movie, while it appears that Ray Johnson, the subject of the film, was probably at least a somewhat interesting man, and possibly an interesting artist, I am inclined, for the most part, to adopt the position expressed in TheaterX's review entitled "How to Waste Your Money." This film just doesn't do a very good job of explaining what makes Ray Johnson interesting, and the film itself is mostly boring (except insofar as boredom is incompatible with being continually annoyed by an annoying soundtrack). All in all, this was a poorly done film. I personally would've been interested to hear a psychiatrist's perspective on Ray Johnson, but there's nothing like that in the film. Not that this would have been necessarily the only way to make this film a good one--but it very well might have helped. The reason I say this is that Ray Johnson appears to have been more than just a little eccentric, and ended up committing suicide apparently without telling anyone why, so it's reasonable to suspect that there was an underlying brain disorder/disease that perhaps might explain the eccentricity, suicide, as well as, possibly, what some might call "excessive" creativity. That is just one thing which might have made the movie a little better. One thing about this movie that was actually kind of disturbing is that it seems to be sort of taking the position, by allowing the view to be expressed by various associates of Ray Johnson to the near-exclusion of any other sort of view, that Ray Johnson's suicide was best viewed as just another piece of art by Ray Johnson--a piece of performance art. But that strikes me as a really silly and childish sort of rationalization, and it's really an unusual way to look at a suicide. By committing suicide the person becomes both a murderer as well as a murder victim all at the same time. I think exactly as highly of the idea of suicide-as-art as I think of the idea of murder-as-art. Suicide is, for the most part, just a mean thing to do to yourself and the people who like you. Art is, for the most part, a way of entertaining other people. The two things don't seem to have any kind of similarity, at least in my view. It's kind of a stupid way to look at suicide, and I really don't have much respect for anything said by anyone or anything who thinks this way about suicide, and that would include this film.There really is way too much blathering in general from, as TheaterX puts it, "artsy-fartsy types," and for the most part it really doesn't help us get any closer to understanding Ray Johnson, even apart from this childish drivel about his suicide being his last work of art.Ray Johnson may well be an interesting character, and I suspect most of the good reviews of this film here can be explained by people's enthusiasm about Ray Johnson himself and/or his art, rather than about this film per se. I'm not trying to say anything negative about Ray Johnson (other than to point out that he was, in fact, a murderer--he murdered himself). But this film is just bad.But, really, I'd feel comfortable recommending that you not see this because of the soundtrack alone. I was so glad when this movie finally ended and I didn't have to hear that damn paint brush slamming that snare drum anymore. There has to be a book out there that does a much better and much less annoying job of documenting Ray Johnson's life and work for those who are interested.

Any reviewer who reviews a movie about an artist and uses the term "artsy fartsy" shouldn't be trusted--except, of course, by those who find such a term enlightening. I am not particularly artistic, but I respect artistic people, those who see things differently-- perhaps idealistically, as engaged with the rest of nature and humanity, through a psychological/sociological/political/etc. prism that uniquely underscores the basis of things. (It is very hard to define what art "does"!) At any rate, Ray Johnson is one such person, and How to Draw a Bunny is one such film. The movie, at least temporarily, lifts the viewer out of the mundane world of tabloidization and banal politics and consumerism, shakes him (or her) up, rearranges him, however slightly, in his view of himself and the world.In this way, this film, like all good art, works something like magic. The viewer doesn't necessarily feel "better" about the world, but the visual abilities have changed for the better, thus improving one's sense of those things that actually matter in life (as opposed to those that don't, such as points of view that use clichés such as "artsy fartsy.") I'm not sure Johnson is exactly likable. Were he my acquaintance, I might feel more dismayed than friendly toward the guy. But I like the way he sees things and helps me see things. The film, well shot and superbly edited, is actually framed as a sort of mystery: why and how did Johnson die? We don't get a complete answer, but the journey is fascinating. This film would, by the way, make a good companion piece with the Andy Goldsworthy movie. Both are about unconventional nonconformists who do things their way, with fascinating results.

It is obvious his suicide was planned and it was a work of art. It seems so. I had to watch this film for a abnormal psych class and i'm supposed to determine the diagnosis for this guy, this is something that Ray Johnson himself would probably love, because he's see it as a game, and he was constantly playing games, loving playing games, always living in a game.. i guess, from seeing the film. When he was younger I don't know if he was like this, he seemed to develop this was of being after being in the art game? for a while. He is a very lovable character, a real character.. "a pure spirit," "incorruptable".. according to one of his former lovers and artist friend of many years. It seems no one really knew him well in the film except for this one man. I guess if you want to get to know Ray Johnson, you can talk to him. But, mostly you can refer to the messages in his art. Like the message in a bottle and then a body in the water.. it can tell a story.What is so remarkable to me is that he is willing to die for this to be his life.. you reap what you sow seems a banal comment to make on this.. he was .. art. so he died as a part. playing a part.another deadly da da ist joke.when he set up his house as a studio highly organized work space