The Annihilation of Fish (Charles Burnett, 1999)

James Earl Jones in The Annihilation of Fish

Cast: James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, Margot Kidder. Screenplay: Anthony C. Winkler. Cinematography: John L. Dempsey Jr., Rick Robinson. Production design: Nina Ruscio. Film editing: Nancy Richardson. Music: Laura Karpman. 

I was surprised that The Annihilation of Fish was written for the screen and not adapted from a play. Anthony C. Winkler's script is mostly talk, the action is largely confined to one setting, and it makes use of only three characters. James Earl Jones plays Fish, a man who believes he is being harassed by a demon; Lynn Redgrave is Poinsettia, who believes that her lover is Giacomo Puccini; and Margot Kidder is their landlady, Mrs. Mudroone, and God forbid if you ever spell her name without the final E. The plot, such as it is, comes from bringing the three together in Mrs. Muldroone's Los Angeles rooming house, where the two misfits, Fish and Poinsettia, fall in love (and into bed) while dealing with Fish's invisible demon, whom he literally wrestles and she finally kills, precipitating a crisis that threatens to end their affair. All three performers are wonderful, and some people find the film charming and funny, but I began to be more annoyed than intrigued by their eccentricities. 

End of the Road (Aram Avakian, 1970)

James Earl Jones and Stacey Keach in End of the Road

Cast: Stacey Keach, Harris Yulin, Dorothy Tristan, James Earl Jones, Grayson Hall, Ray Brock, John Pleshette, Gail Gilmore. Screenplay: Dennis McGuire, Terry Southern, Aram Avakian, based on a novel by John Barth. Cinematography: Gordon Willis. Production design: Jack Wright III. Film editing: Robert Q. Lovett. Music: Teo Macero. 

Tonally and narratively chaotic from the outset, Aram Avakian's End of the Road finally settles into a straightforward plot line before its nihilistic ending. It earned an X rating for a truly harrowing abortion scene (and perhaps also for a scene in which a naked man tries to copulate with a chicken), but it's no skin flick. Instead it's a fable about ... oh, maybe about the malaise of life in the middle of the twentieth century, to judge from the montage of scenes from the era spanning Adolf Hitler to Richard Nixon. If it needs to be seen for anything it's for the astonishing and out-of-character performance by James Earl Jones as a psychiatrist who runs a very unconventional mental institution. Otherwise, it's a movie to be endured more than to be savored.