Review of Escanaba in da Moonlight (2001) by Noel V — 19 Nov 2011

You can tell this was a personal obsession with Daniels--he drags every loony thought found in his head into this picture, along with every ounce of love and passion he can muster, and at least in this case the results I find aren't bad at all (despite the film almost being universally panned by establishment critics).

'Bizarre' hardly describes this; one has to append the word 'beyond' for the term to begin to do justice. Daniels goes into Upper Michigan culture, into game hunting culture, and into the culture of big boys cooped up in a hunting lodge, flatulating (the scene where he and his friends deal with one man's monumentally stored, built-up and expelled fart has to be the greatest joke (of its kind) in film history).

Along the way he touches upon a gently demented but somehow sincerely held form of mysticism, one that connects with nature, manhood, and some strange notions about the infinite.