Big Bad Love
Husband and wife Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket) and Debra Winger  (Terms of Endearment,An Officer and a Gentleman) star inBig Bad Love, a fragmented adaptation ofstoriesby Southern writer  Larry Brown. Leon Barlow (Howard) is a hard-drinking, heavy-smoking,  long-haired, and deeply unhappy aspiring writer who pulls a dozen  rejection slips out of his mailbox every day. He fights with his ex-wife  Marilyn (Winger) over his undependability, helps his best friend Monroe  (Paul Le Mat) paint a house, and generally tries to get through his life  with some semblance of purpose. The struggle of everyday life is well  balanced by vivid realizations of Barlow's dreams, fantasies, and fleeting  thoughts. Just at the point when the vague plot ofBig Bad Lovethreatens to become maddening, the movie crystallizes with a tragedy that  brings the underlying grief into focus. A messy but deeply felt movie.--Bret Fetzer