For good reason, The Fisher King is one of the most heralded works of filmmaker Terry Gilliam, but one I had never watched before. Originally, I thought it was about some modern-day knights and the late Robin Williams cast as a chief Central Park bum. To be fair, I did own a previously viewed copy of it on VHS. Does that count?

I had embarked on a long-forgotten quest to find the time to watch it, which I finally did with the Criterion Collection edition last week. I realized the movie was so much more than another Gilliam visual feast for the mind, because of it has a soiled, ramshackle heart.

Jack (Jeff Bridges) is a stereotypical ’90s shock jock, putting callers through the metaphorical meat grinder. This all goes bad for him when a crazed fan shoots up a party of full of people (back when things like that weren’t everyday occurrences). Three years later, he’s a clerk at a rundown video shop. When a young boy gives him a Pinocchio puppet, it sends Jack into suicide mode. And when a duo of New York toughs try to immolate him, thank God for Parry (Williams) and his homeless cadre rush out of the storm to slay this murderous party.

From there, Parry charges Jack to find the Holy Grail, with comedy, drama and, most of all, the rusted heart. The film does this without being too cloying and superficial — something much of Williams’ work came to be in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Sure, the artistic angles, the grating noise and the sheer claustrophobia are all there, but Williams’ performance stands out most as remarkable. Perry acts like a man out of time — the “janitor of God,” he puts it — with this quest helping to work out demons of his own. We learn the source of his mental anguish when all goes south.

Gilliam is masterful at nightmarish scenarios. Here, one with a bold-but-dirty face gets a happy ending, but it’s one this movie truly deserves. Also, out-of-the-norm actors like Amanda Plummer, Tom Waits and Michael Jeter are excellent in their supporting roles.

Fear of the unknown is one of Gilliam’s mainstays, but The Fisher King is about embracing it. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

In an obsession that’s just plain unhealthy no matter how you slice it, a Brian Bonsall-ian 5-year-old boy worships Gus, his friendly neighborhood garbageman. Said fixation burns at such a white-hot intensity, the tot sets his alarm early for garbage day, starred with serial-killer detail on his bedside calendar. With the pee-your-pants anticipation of Christmas morning, he rouses his father from sleep with “Dad! Dad! Wake up! It’s garbage day!”

I, for one, believe it’s safe to say this is why the straight-to-VHS children’s program bears the title of Garbage Day!, exclamation theirs — and, we can be certain, the misguided youth’s. Let’s call him “Kid” since he’s not given a name. In that spirit, for reasons you’ve already surmised, neither a writer nor a director is credited.

Dad (William Schreiner, who also produced) happily helps his son (Quinn Schreiner) tote their trash receptacles to the curb to await the arrival of their sure-to-stink pal in public service. Kid even has a Thermos of coffee tied around his neck for Gus’ consumption.

“I wish I could see everything on garbage day,” says a starry-eyed Kid, a budding li’l John Hinckley Jr.

“You do?” answers Gus (Steven Diebold), in an overtone decidedly hushed and sinister. “Well, maybe we can work something out.”

We’re spared the fevered negotiations and whatever exchange occurs. Instead, we leap right to Dad and Kid as they follow Gus on his route. Gus fills his truck with water balloons and lets his mentees watch them explode in the trash compactor. Do the taxpayers know Gus engages in such rascality on their dime?

Lest you risk injury, make sure you’re properly seated before the riotous bloopers involving the inability of the truck’s automated arm to lift cans correctly. Scoring this montage is a Yello-styled synth track that swaps hooks for the disturbing coos and giggles of an unseen baby. Sequence complete, the lid on an unsanitary garbage container lifts, revealing Kid. Way to supervise, Dad.

Informing his passengers that milk bottles are recycled to make Frisbees, Gus asks, “Why throw anything away when it can be made into something else?” I know Gus’ line is rhetorical, but does the oily man live in some fantasy land where used condoms, tampons and toilet tissue don’t exist?

To demonstrate how bulldozers crush refuse pancake-flat, Gus smashes a line of perfectly good watermelons instead of, oh, I dunno, actual trash.

As the poignant 20-minute video reaches its end, our trio stands atop a landfill at sunset, looking over the fetid pit of filth as if it were the goddamn Grand Canyon.

To pay Gus back for the field trip, Dad and Kid have a crazy surprise awaiting him the next week: a trash bin filled with colorful balloons! Not only that, but the guys have gone to the trouble of getting them custom-printed with the line, “Have a nice GARBAGE DAY!” While this gesture may have come from the heart, it’s pretty stupid if you ask me. My reasons number three:

1. Because the balloons are helium, they immediately float away. Some gift!
2. Think of all the birds soon to be killed by the string-tied rubber orbs of death. Suffice to say, those avians will not be having a nice garbage day.
3. Even if Gus grabs a couple of balloons, you know he’ll waste no time popping them with his vehicle of doom, grooming Kid for the day they inevitably move to heads. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.