Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves serving chicken fingers and domestic beers to all the fat, flair-loving patrons at Chotchkie’s. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs.

John Malkovich is a wonderfully odd character. He’s a fantastic actor, obviously, but if you told me that every single one of his roles were actually based on different aspects of the man himself, I’d believe it. Dr. Jekyll, 18th century French ladies’ man, presidential assassin, musketeer, serial killer, retarded field-worker during the Great Depression, himself… I can easily see all of these in Malkovich’s eyes. Again, this is because he’s an absolutely incredible actor, but I think it’s also due to fact that the guy is certifiably insane. A short teaser for Malkovich’s new film, The Great Buck Howard, hit the web last month. It didn’t offer much in the way of story, but it gave a quick sense of the character. A longer trailer has just been released and it fleshes everything out nicely. Of course, all of it still takes a backseat to Malkovich. Check it out: It looks like a pretty straight-forward film that’s main appeal is Malkovich, but is that a bad thing? He does manic, nutty, and funny as hell better than most other actors because you believe he could actually be this crazy in real life. The Great Buck Howard screened last year at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and headmaster Neil Miller gave it a solid B in his review. It should hit theaters sometime this year. What do you think of the trailer? Of Malkovich?

When it comes to the movies I see every year at Sundance I have only one complaint — some of them take a very, very long time to make their theatrical release.

With the exception of The Wackness, I have allowed quite a few of my Sundance ’08 favorites to dangle in oblivion, without much recognition beyond the positive reviews that I wrote in January. The Great Buck Howard will not be one of them.

John Malkovich stars as a washed up mentalist trying to get back into the spotlight in this very enjoyable comedy from Writer/Director Sean McGinly and Producer Tom Hanks.