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Inside Monkey Zetterland
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Wikipedia article
'Inside Monkey Zetterland' is a 1992 independent film written by the former child actor Steve Antin.
Plot
A struggling former child actor and now-adult screenwriter, "Monkey" Zetterland is working on a historical screenplay based around the defunct Red Car subway of Los Angeles. He lives in a building owned by his neurotic mother Honor Zetterland, who is a famous soap opera star. Secretly hoping there is a future in acting for Monkey, she is trying to turn her other son, Brent Zetterland, a hairdresser, into a film star.
Honor shows up at Monkey's house to borrow his epsom salts at the same time that his disagreeable girlfriend, Daphne, arrives. His sister, Grace Zetterland, arrives in tears to reveal that her lesbian girlfriend, Cindy, has become pregnant in an attempt to bring the two of them closer. Honor rents the basement apartment to Sascha and Sofie, a gay man and lesbian posing as husband and wife while publishing an underground newsletter that outs closeted homosexuals in the entertainment industry.
As if this were not enough, a creepy woman, Bella, shows up with a fan letter for Honor, and another strange lady, Imogene, begins openly pursuing Monkey's attention. After a series of confrontations, Daphne moves out, and around the same time the family's absentee father, Mike, (who has frequently left home for long periods of time throughout their lives) surfaces in time for Thanksgiving.
While everyone busies themselves with their personal issues, Grace discovers that Sascha and Sofie are in fact terrorists who intend to bomb a local insurance agency that is denying medical coverage to people with HIV and AIDS. Sofie comes up with a plan to send Grace into the agency with a bomb, which Grace and Sascha believe is set up to give Grace enough time to escape. It is not, and Grace dies in the explosion.
This event pulls everyone out of their own selfish interests and forces them to re-examine their lives and the people around them. The patriarch of the family disappears again, Grace's lover and her baby are taken in by the family and Monkey decides to let Imogene get closer to him. Then, just as things are starting to fall into place, Monkey comes home to find his apartment ransacked and his finally finished script stolen. It was his only copy.
Later that evening, Bella, who left a fan letter for Honor, arrives with Monkey's stolen script and a gun. She tries to shoot Honor, but hits the family dog instead. She is taken down, but the ensuing drama pulls the remaining emotional conflicts of the family into place. Honor accepts that Monkey is never going to become a famous actor. Instead of pushing him that way, she uses her connections to have his script produced, with his brother Brent as the star.
Release and critical reception
The film, produced by Tani L. Cohen and Chuck Grieve, debuted at the Toronto Festival of Festivals on September 12, 1992, and was released to a very limited number of theaters in the United States in 1993. Donovan was nominated as best supporting male at the 1994 Independent Spirit Awards. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize (dramatic) at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. It was released in 1994 on VHS and in 1995 on Laserdisc. It was finally released on DVD on February 6, 2007.
The film was generally well received by critics. Marjorie Baumgarten of 'The Austin Chronicle' gave it three stars, writing, "These actors all create riveting snapshots of oddballs in action," but also noting the film has a "rambling storyline". These same characteristics who were praised in positive reviews were panned in negative ones, such as Desson Howe of 'The Washington Post' who wrote, "After the characters have taken up most of the movie airing their idiosyncrasies, they undergo melodramatic fates that reveal little more than Antin's recession of an imagination."
The film did however cause a rift between the real life brothers Steve Antin and Jonathon Antin as Jonathon was insulted by the film's close resemblance to their own family and how the character Brent Zetterland was depicted as vapid, vain, oafish and slow. However, it is rumored that the two have since reconciled.
Cast
* Steve Antin as "Monkey" Zetterland
**Nicholas Matus as Young "Monkey" Zetterland
* Patricia Arquette as Grace
* Sandra Bernhard as Imogene
* Sofia Coppola as Cindy
* Tate Donovan as Brent Zetterland
* Rupert Everett as Sasha
* Katherine Helmond as Honor Zetterland
* Bo Hopkins as Mike Zetterland
* Ricki Lake as Bella, The Stalker
* Debi Mazar as Daphne
* Martha Plimpton as Sofie
* Robin Antin as Waitress In Canters
* Frances Bay as Grandma
* Luca Bercovici as Boot Guy
* Chuck Grieve as Guy At Taco Stand
* Lance Loud as The Psychiatrist
* Chris Nash as Policeman
* Lou Pearlman as The Warden / Observation Psychiatrist (as Louis J. Pearlman)
* Blair Tefkin as Brent's Assistant
* Marc Lafia as Observation Psychiatrist
* Melissa Sullivan as Observation Psychiatrist (as Melissa Lechner)
* Lauren Zuckerman as Observation Psychiatrist
References
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