CineVegas
LAS VEGAS — David Lynch collides with William S. Burroughs in the trippy ’70s satire, “Your Name Here,” but unfortunately, the contact high proves awfully fleeting. In his feature debut, which had its world premiere at CineVegas, director-writer Matthew Wilder has certainly concocted a strange brew of spacey, alternate realities, talking still-born fetuses and a frumpy Traci Lords, but the rambling results need to be cut by at least 15 minutes if the film wants in on the cult/midnight movie circuit.
Bill Pullman is given the rare opportunity to pull out all stops as William J. Frick (any resemblance to Philip K. Dick is purely intentional) a permanently fried, visionary sci-fi author. With the IRS and an ex-wife (Lords) intruding on his efforts to complete his final masterpiece, Frick ingests a powdery substance that has the unintended effect of trapping him in one of his own novels.
It’s nice to see Pullman able to stretch in a vehicle that showcases his unappreciated comic talents and the assembled supporting cast, also including Taryn Manning, M. Emmet Walsh and Harold Perrineau, provide some wacky back-up, but “Your Name Here” ultimately proves too impenetrable for its own good.
While filmmaker Wilder demonstrates a keen, winking eye for ’70s detail (he’s currently prepping a feature about Linda Lovelace with Anna Faris attached), he should have taken a hit of some of Frick’s magic powder and transported himself back into the editing room.
CAST: Bill Pullman, Taryn Manning, Harold Perrineau, Tracy Lords.
DIRECTOR-SCREENWRITER: Matthew Wilder
PRODUCERS: Mark Burman, Eric Ricart, Wali Razaq
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: David McFarland
MUSIC: Michael Roth
EDITOR: Tanner Stauss
No rating, 106 minutes.
