Dreams With Sharp Teeth

I'm a little embarrassed to say I've never heard of harden elision before I watched this movie but I'm glad to learn about him. Although I fell like I learned some of the most valuable lessons for my life I just cannot say that this movie was enjoyable. I think it's because I expected this documentary to be more of a movie

A documentary about Harlan Ellison, an incredibly talented writer and also a hilariously bitter person. Very fun to watch if you enjoy a company of a cranky old jew. RECOMMENDED

This is one of my all time favorite documentaries. I highly recommend it to every one.

great doc about the guy who (among other things) who my favorite star trek (original) episode ' 'the city on the edge of forever"

I love Harlan and his writing after watching this I love his personality equally as much.

American short-story writer and essayist Harlan Ellison has more in common with old-school Jewish comics like Lenny Bruce, Mel Brooks and Woody Allen than with the science fiction masters he's usually lumped in with, like Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke and Dick. With a raging social conscience, an utter disdain for pretension, bad writing, and those who tolerate mediocrity and intolerance, there's nothing he won't say. Ellison's larger-than-life persona and willingness to walk the walk have made him a legendary and contentious figure albeit, oddly, one not widely known outside lovers of genre fiction--probably because he's never had a major, popular film officially adapted from his stories, and his books are maddeningly difficult to find in bookstores. In DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH we get to see Harlan read--from memory--portions of his most famous stories; hang out in his astonishing LA home, dubbed Ellison Wonderland, with fellow motormouth Robin Williams; relive misadventures from his 50-year career with old friends and fellow writers; and see terrific vintage clips of him from the '60s and '70s talking about his love of vengeance and the revolutionary powers of fiction. Long a crusader for the property rights of writers everywhere, he's been the bane of existence for producers, editors and, indeed, other writers, for decades. His rejection of religion and spirituality in all its forms is truly inspiring, and his contempt for barely literate bestseller pop fiction and the mind-numbing effects of bad TV is unparalleled. Ellison may write books that historically have been shelved in the science fiction section but he is as committed and passionate about the real world as any political activist. "No, you don't have the right to your own opinion," he says, "you have the right to an *informed* opinion. Anything else is just farts in the wind." Ellison reveals writing for the hard yet simple work it is and sneers at those who would relegate this necessary social function to some ethereal elitist plane. DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH is a rare glimpse into the too-often unseen world of those who create with words and have the courage and conviction to back that up.

Now I want to go back and read some of his works again. I will probably recoil in the first few pages of most of them, just like 25 years ago. However, I still think about I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream, and many of the stories in the Dangerous Visions anthology.

This documentary is relatively even-handed as it presents Harlan Ellison, a prolific, important, but impishly angry writer. There are several laugh-out-loud moments of the cringe humor ilk as we listen to Ellison rant about fans, writers, Hollywood, politics, and writing. I enjoyed listening to much of what he had to say, but I don't think I could stand to be in the room with him unless I knew that he liked me and was unarmed.

Harlan Ellison is a fascinating man. But the production value of the film could have been better.

Creative personalities, however bright their stars gleam, collapse under the weight of the world's pressures. Harlan Ellison, the brightest of all these literary stars, takes these impossible problems and swallows them whole. So is the subject of this insightful documentary, centering on the giant, with awards in the genres of sci-fi, mystery, and political commentary. Not only has this pillar written 70 novels, hundreds of short stories, nonfiction, teleplays, and screenplays, but is one of the most interesting human beings I have ever seen. Following his life in the limelight as an intellectual of unparalleled comparison, and his early years as a downtrodden Jewish teen in anti-Semitic Ohio, we are given a complicated maze in which to extract the personage of Ellison. Not only is he against all forms of bullsh*t, but was a figure in the civil rights movement, and a mouthpiece for education. Putting the praises aside, the trailer reveals the true payoff, which is that Ellison is also an intolerable narrator of his own life. He has awesome (and I mean that as in awe inspiring) knowledge to lay down in commentary throughout the film, speaking of what it is to be a writer, a famous personality, and an independent entity among the Hollywood elite and cultural milieu. He is loud, obnoxious, and at times reviles you, but is so entertaining and uncaring of the views of populist America, that not to appreciate his audacity feels like heresy. In the midst of all that prophecy he lays down, he is also a bitter, old, angry man, but with the credentials he has, it's hard to imagine him being anything resembling timid. He is, by all accounts, the most original person alive. Peppering his own narration is that of Robin Williams, Neil Gaiman, and Dan Simmons, great artists who not only see him as a glorious person, but the human he so truly embodies. This, is a film you must see, and cannot fully be explained. A film where creativity blooms, ripe to pick for the eager mind.