everything you have heard about this movie is true.

As Good As It Gets

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Revered in some circles, displeased by others, this movie based on Ray Bradbury, will probably divide the audience. I have to admit I found the whole thing rather a chore because the character of Carl is immediately an asshole, a miser with "skin illustrations", from neck to toes, and if they are called tattoos he gets very angry. I envisioned Steiger was often on the verge of turning into the Incredible Hulk at any moment, the guy's Carl is so bursting at the seams with rage and seething with anger. He has a goal and that is to kill Claire Bloom's skin illustrator. Why you might ask Carl would wish to harm her? While looking to get laid, she desires of him to sit for her and receive the illustrations. What Carl doesn't realize before it is too late is that each illustration becomes alive to those who stare at them long enough. Three tales are brought to life, future events concerning characters played by the three principles, Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom, and Robert Drivas (who, for the most part, looks like a decent, well-tempered, effeminate young man undeserved of Carl's volcanic outbursts). Drivas plays Willie, a man traveling from New York City to California for a possible job in what looks like Depression Era America, in a midwestern type backwoods area with a lake. Drivas is "greeted" (if that is what you call it, more like rudely interrupted) by Carl who seems to be looking for coffee or food…maybe, just companionship, although he has a funny way of treating a fellow hitcher.While talking, Willie begins to envision future tales, one where a married couple, in a muted white home with all the comforts technology could provide, in an equally bland marriage, trying to cope with a rebellious son and daughter who may be planning their demise (their nursery has a holographic mechanism that allows the children to go to fictional places like Africa or the Middle Ages, with an authenticity all too real), the second about a small space crew whose ship has crashed in a place where it always rains and dead tree limbs sprout in all directions as they try to find a functioning "sun dome" that can offer shelter, comfort, and warmth (but Steiger's Colonel is such a brute, commanding them to move forward despite the difficulties harassing their every step, that it leads to perilous, dire consequences), and the third concerns a vision by the Earth's remaining 2000 people, that nothingness would occur after one more day, that they have decided to "put to sleep" their children in order to keep them from experiencing the horror that might result from this (trusting a dream about his nothingness, Steiger agrees with the consensus while Bloom questions such a horrible decision to kill the children despite a dream envisioned by all in attendance).The movie goes back and forth to Carl and Willie with the two addressing the power of Bloom's flesh artistry and what transpires as a result of one blank area of the tortured, tattooed illustrated man's back which can allow those who look a peek into the future proposing a possible fate. I found this movie experience wholly unpleasant, frustrating (the stories and characters just left me cold), and rather ultimately unsatisfying, because Carl (and the characters he portrays) is such a blistering cipher, with a mood and attitude so foul he's impossible to sympathize with, even though his reason for being so angry comes from Bloom's art on his body. That said, the film is photographed well and has bright spots from a technical standpoint. Certain to be a fan favorite for tattooists and those with an interest in body artistry.

It seems to me that the key to this movie is the mystery of the banked blazing passion of the character of Claire Bloom. It looks like sexual passion, but as the movie unfolds it reveals itself as raging agony.She inscribes scenes of terribly flawed men too willing to sacrifice others, scenes of terrible losses, scenes intended to make the viewer KNOW what rotten hopeless greedy self-centered vicious little apes we really are. This woman is a deeply civilized person who has suffered losses so terrible she is driven to travel in time and torment a surrogate for the man who caused them. She does it with exquisite controlled cruelty--the tattooing. The stories get closer to what really happened to her. She leaves in order to refrain from the culmination of her passion, which would be murder and not sex. She doesn't care that Steiger himself never hurt her because she knows now there are no innocents. And Rod Steiger is perfect--he FEELS like her innocent victim. All he wanted at the beginning was to be with this beautiful woman. It's just that she is incandescently bitter at humanity and he is human. He is no innocent, and by the time we meet him he knows it well. He knows every person who looks at his skin illustrations learns that s/he is no innocent, either, and then hates him. He is now as embittered and vengeful as the woman was, and that's her revenge on humanity.But then there's the stilted, awkward, vacuous non-performance of the other guy. It was as if they grabbed some carpenter's assistant to read through the script with Steiger because the real actor was passed out in his trailer. I thought Rod Steiger got more acting-back from the dog. (Many here seem to respect this actor--maybe in some other movie, but not this one.) This is what prevents it from being a masterpiece.

'The Illustrated Man' shows how good a writer Ray Bradbury was, not to mention how his head was full of fascinating ideas. It shows this because the film is incredibly dated today, from the acting styles to the visions of the future we witness. And yet I remained engrossed throughout, because beneath the anachronisms and barmy notions lie the same powerful film that resonated with me as a child.A lot of the film has little to do with the title character, although Rod Steiger's menacing performance will never let you forget the man with all-over body tattoos that come to life if you stare too hard. Also, Steiger himself has multiple roles throughout, and he delivers them with a mix of the theatrical bellow and long-faced stoicism of the period, but they still have their impact. Meanwhile of greater interest are the short stories each tattoo reveals. Like Bradbury's 'The Martian Chronicles', this film is a collection of tales woven around a central premise. We view his fears about where human society is heading, thanks to the all-pervading intrusion of technology into our lives.I'm reminded of a Poe line - "without music or an intriguing idea, colour becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, home becomes catacomb, and the dead are but for a moment motionless". What becomes of the human soul when the machines take over? Add the all-embracing pallor and single-chrome fashion of a typical 1960s vision of the future, and you have a very bleak picture indeed. Yet that's how people saw things then (our guesses on things to come will look just as ridiculous soon enough), and the central theme, given how far we've progressed technologically in the interim, cannot be any less relevant. I'm glad our modern perspective yearns for more colour though - never mind technology killing our souls - the achromatic architecture would make anyone suicidal enough already.Sojourns into futurity do of course suggest sci-fi trappings. Even putting aside the fact that predictions of the future quickly become dated, Ray Bradbury was never scientifically accurate at the time he wrote his stories. In 'The Martian Chronicles' for example, it is possible to breathe on Mars, water flows through canals, and a few blasts from a rocket's engines can terraform the atmosphere. 'The Illustrated Man' takes the same liberties with reality. Yet to dismiss it because of nonsensical scientific premises is to miss the point. The settings are not more than fabulous window dressing - fantasy masquerading as sci-fi. It is the exploration of the human condition in each tale that Bradbury is concerned with, and they are timeless.As such, while time has not been entirely kind to this screen adaption of 'The Illustrated Man', its emotional core remains intact. The Bradbury flair for the weird and the wonderful is untarnished, and his thoughts still clear. You just need to take a good long look at a rainbow afterwards.

Rad Bradbury is perhaps one of the most notable names in Science Fiction. Throughout his long and illustrious career, his books have not only made him an icon in many circles, but have also made him a household word. One such book which is required reading in college and sets the stage for many a live play, is " The Illustrated Man." Interesting as it is to read, it rises quickly from the pages of the novel onto the silver screen with the great talents of Rod Steiger, Claire Bloom and Robert Drivas. These three and their fellow Thespians combine to illuminate each of the fascinating tales literally embedded into the skin of a traveling roustabout. While his only purpose is to seek out and kill the woman who decorated his entire body with incredible and fascinating skin illustrations, we are warned not to stare at them. Each illustration 'comes alive' when we look too long and thus we are sent into the future by them. The movie is laden heavy with tragedy, conflict, mystery and intrigue and we cannot help but sympathize with Carl as he travels in search of his victim. I believe Bradbury would agree this is an excellent film. ****