Tin foil cap? Actually, Garden State is currently playing at Pipers Alley and at River East, though you should head out there fast, because this is likely to be one of those brilliant movies, like Lost in Translation, that doesn't do very well on its first run but which will be studied in screen-writing classes for ages to come.

Anyone who suggests this movie is a "coming of age" film or even a comedy, needs to slow down and think about it. Though the movie offers several moments which inspire laughter, it is truly one of the darkest, saddest, most disturbing movies a thinking audience is ever likely to see. It is filled with poetry, not in its language, but in its deep symbolism and in its trust in its audience to come to their own conclusions. On the surface, the story comes across as a Bush era version of The Graduate, in that the Dustin Hoffman character (in this case, Largeman, played by Zach Braff) has been numbed by lithium for most of his life. From the opening sequence, during which Largeman seems indifferent toward the plight of those around him, indeed, even to his own demise, as the plane he is on crashes to earth while he adjusts the air blower above his head.

Largeman's hopes for a normal life outside of the lithium stupor are about as real as the get rich quick schemes which are a running theme throughout the film. He gets involved with a compulsive liar. He begins hanging out with the derelicts, drug addicts and thieves he knew from childhood. He fools himself into thinking he didn't cripple his mom, but that it was the fault of a half inch piece of plastic. He knows that his father murdered his mother, that his best friend is a grave robber, that he is about to die in a plane wreck, but he is too emotionally numb to do anything about it.

There isn't a wasted frame in the entire picture. Everything represents something else, but this thick symbolism blends in, going unnoticed at first, like Largeman's new shirt. A flaming arrow falls at the feet of his girlfriend, representing both cupid as well as the descent into the abyss.

Ooh, wait, I'm sorry, I got distracted.

Let me tell you. If you want to get away with something, just do it in a way in which anyone who tries to describe what you did sounds insane, or sounds like a conspiracy theorist. If you are going to lie, make it such a BIG, complicated lie that anyone who tries to explain it will sound like they are wearing a aluminum foil hat. If you want to do something evil, make it so incredibly, unbelievably evil, that very few will even suspect that man is capable of such a thing, and then nobody will even suspect you, let alone prosecute you. Hitler knew all about this philosophy. Bush knows all about it as well. He will act in the most nonsensical way that anyone who tries to protest what he is doing will of course be met with one word: NONSENSE!

Oil. $50 a barrel? Gee. I guess that Iraq war thing didn't help.