Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10336 in VHS
• Released on: 1992-08-26
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Formats: Color, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 82 minutes

Customer Reviews

Ruben & Ed
HEY WEIRDO--Ruben & Ed is a hard movie to find, but if you do happen across it buy it, rent it, steal it, watch it, over and over and over; it gets funnier each time. The movie details the relationships between two lost souls, maybe three if you count the dead cat, travelling through a Southwestern dessert in search of...their minds, their car, "success"? You really need this seminar...oops, movie. Crispin Glover is awesome as Ruben, an ecclectic 70's throwback who happens to like cat sqeaky toys and platform shoes and Howard Hesseman who plays a convincing Ed--a wanna-be motivational real estate recruiter who's going through some personal dilema's with a crazy ex-wife and a life going nowhere until he meets Ruben. Great dialog and scenary, I can't imagine my life without it.

"My cat can eat a whole watermelon."
Here's great little nugget of weirdness. Crispin Glover plays Ruben Farr, a reclusive slacker of sorts who lives in the motel owned by his mother. He spends a lot of his time listening to Mahler, dressing in 70's clothes, and not much else. His mother threatens to take away his beloved music unless he makes a friend, and so enters Ed Tuttle (Howard Hessmen). Ed has his own problems. See, he a part of an organization that makes money through some sort of pyramid scheme, and Ed has been less than successful in recruiting new members. Ed also suffers quite a bit of verbal abuse from his ex-wife, Rula, played perfectly by Karen Black.

Ed happens to meet up with Rubin, and they make a deal that if Ed will drive Rubin out to the desert and help him find the right spot to bury Rubin's dead cat, Rubin will attend one of organizations' meetings. Things go awry, as they tend to do, and things start to really get weird.

A low-key comedy that a number of people I know thought was stupid, but if you enjoy bizarre characters and offbeat situations, then you'll really like this movie. Hessman is really funny playing off Glover's usual oddness. This movie may not be for everyone, but after watching, I did find myself quoting a number of lines from the movie like "I am the king of the echo people!", "Man, it is el warmo out here.", or "Why don't you keep your hands off other people's refrigerators!" Not available on DVD yet, but I'll keep looking...

Wildly funny and touching
This is one of the most original and wildly funny movies I have ever seen! But it is more than that. There is a moment when Rubin and Ed finally bury the cat where Ed looks at Rubin and sees him crying and realizes that however strange Rubin is, he is another human being in anguish because he has lost the only thing that ever loved him. Later, Rubin sees the way Ed's vicious ex-wife treats him and, possibly for the first time in his isolated life, tries to reach out to comfort another person.

And, by the way, I live in fear of the day my VHS tape wears out. VHS players are only about 2% of new player sales and will probably go the way of the 8-track very soon. Will someone PLEASE transfer this gem to DVD!