Director James Toback poses some heavy metaphysical questions to several armchair philosophers, including producer Joseph Kantner, to whom Toback is shown pitching his unusual idea for the film in a recurring sequence perhaps modeled as a parody of Louis Malle's 'My Dinner with André'. Kantner's skepticism was obviously staged, but elsewhere the replies are invariably candid, coy, pragmatic, imaginative, and sometimes just plain eccentric. Each of the ten interviews reveals a fully human (in other words, somewhat flawed) character, all of them more interesting when recounting earthy anecdotes about sex or death than when pondering the infinite cosmos. Profound questions don't always guarantee like-minded responses, but the film is valuable for the way it prompts viewers to ask themselves the same questions. In the end it may be nothing more than a self-conscious, self-absorbed novelty item, but if nothing else Toback at least offered an offbeat antidote to all the megabuck summer schlockbusters then in release.
Review of The Big Bang
