bad/awesome flixxx review: Rubin & Ed (1991)

So, after years of looking for a copy (it has never had a dvd release and has long been out of print on vhs) I finally got to witness ol Jonny Fever and George McFly in one of the weirdest sought after independant flicks out there. Howard Hesseman, Crispin Hellion Glover, and Karen Black in- Ruben & Ed.



Years ago, I remember some friends talking about Crispin Glover appearing on David Letterman dressed up all funny and acting completely distraught and confused like he was on acid, and ended with him trying to kick Letterman in the face and saying "I'm strong, I can kick... I can kick" and Letterman walking off the set during the interview. That was long before Youtube, and I continued to hear about this legendary interview over the years, and finally someone somewhere explained that he wasn't on acid, he was playing a character that ended up being in a movie he did four years later. AGAIN, EVEN THOUGH IT SAYS HE IS IN THE TEXT, HE IS NOT ON ACID.



Since then, I had watched the clip many times, but never could land a copy of the flick. We even saw a copy on vhs at a place on tour one time and offered the guy at the shop a good amount of bread for it, just so we could see the damn thing. He wouldn't even let us rent it for fear that we wouldn't bring it back since we werent from around there. This only made us salivate for it more and more. So blah blah blah, we got our hands on a copy, and I just rewatched it last night.
Talk about a weird flick. And I'm not talking Crispin Glover "What is it?" weird, I'm just talking about a very strange movie about an eccentric young hermit, and a middle aged divorcee trying to pull his life together through a "get rich quick" scheme. Since it'll probably be a while before you find a copy of this gem, Ill give you a quick plot rundown. Ed has joined "the organization", a pyramid scheme disguised as a real estate money making seminar. He is instructed to get dudes to the seminar. Ruben is a home body who lives in a motel that his mom manages. He listens to Mahler and dances around squeaking a toy mouse. His mom desperately wants him outta the motel and wants him to make some friends. She takes away his jam box, and says he can have it back when he makes a friend. So, these dudes meet each other and Ruben says he'll go to the seminar if Ed will come pick him up. Ed comes over, and Ruben says he has to meet his mother first. Ed is gonna split, but decides to wait and drink a glass of water. He goes to get ice out of the fridge and pulls a dead frozen cat out of the freezer. When he asks what the hell Ruben is doing with a dead cat in his freezer, Ruben says he needs to find a place to bury it. Ed says why not the desert, and Ruben agrees to go to the seminar if Ed will drive him out to the desert to bury it. So they go, and they are fighting and bickering the whole time, and Ruben keeps NOT burying the cat because its the wrong spot. Anyway, it gets weirder from there. I don't wanna ruin everything, its kind of slow in a few spots, but could have been a second rate Raising Arizona if it got more publicity. There are several sequences that are fucking hilarious, such as the cat waterskiing dream sequence. Anyway... this one rules. If you can find it, I highly recommend it.