Review: Dreams with Sharp Teeth
June 5, 2008
Filed under: New Releases, Theatrical Reviews
A non-fiction portrait of acclaimed, polarizing author Harlan Ellison, Dreams with Sharp Teeth doesn’t attempt to conclusively explain how its subject came to be who he’s. Avoiding a easy, chronological cause-and-effect recitation of the various noteworthy events of his life, Erik Nelson’s engaging documentary instead opts to merely present the writer in all his arrogant, combative, cantankerous glory, interspersing Ellison’s diatribes about writing, TV and religion (among many other topics) with comments from admiring friends (including Robin Williams and Neil Gaiman) and segments in which Ellison reads passages from some of his most renowned works (”‘Repent Harlequin!’ Stated the Ticktockman,” “Spider Kiss”) in front of cheesy computer-generated backgrounds. Less intent on investigating than simply depicting, it’s neither a definitive statement on his canon nor on his fantastically interesting life but, rather, an intimate portrait of a now-73-year-old artist who, as Gaiman sums up, is “partly one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century…and partly an alternately impish and furious 11-year-old boy. Or possibly 9-year-old boy. Or possibly 5-year-old boy.”
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