Props to Ashley Judd for letting herself look as unglamorous as she does in Bug - not playing a serial killer, literary figure, or some other Oscar-bait role, I mean - and William Friedkin for proving out thirty years after he'd seemed to have dried up; there were flashes (1980's Cruising, 1985's To Live and Die in L.A.) but no spark until now. I can see why this movie didn't attract any indie lust: it's way over the top (the tin foil decor in Act II seals that deal), graphically unpleasant (I wanted Calamine lotion in the worst way), and it goes from "vaguely unsettling" to "totally fucking nuts" in no time flat. I don't know if Bug is particularly sociologically relevant, except, perhaps as an examination of Lyndon LaRouche's cult, though I've heard all the usual post-9/11, present-tense Iraq War paranoia static. It is unafraid of laughing at itself, as the memorable Ashley Judd vs. pizza box sequence proves; two minutes later the mesmerizing, disturbing finale proves that it's not afraid to laugh at us, either. From the play by Tracy Letts - which is undoubtedly springing up on a thousand college campuses as we speak on the strength of his August: Osage County - and featuring outstanding turns by Michael Shannon as a deranged vet, and Harry Connick, Jr. as Judd's abusive ex-con ex-husband.
