There's been a huge cinematic backlash against Gee-Dubyah-Bee's "war of stupidity"... errr... I mean "war on terrorism" in the past couple of years, led by "Bowling for Columbine" and other like-minded docos. Of course there's nothing more appealing than watching the little man stick it to Uncle Sam, but this little curiosity does it in such a way as to leave its audience dazed and confused, and is a fictional account (supposedly) to boot.
Unable to peddle his watches on the pavement, a fat, middle-aged little-boy-lost (in all the worst senses of that phrase!!) tries to scratch out a living in a world that has all but forgotten him and glossed over atrocities of the past. No one is interested, and when he attempts to give away his merchandise he is almost killed for his philanthropy. (Strangely, art seems to imitate life here, as this is also the story of the distribution of this film - apart from a couple of screenings to a small handful of paying customers at underground festivals, it has been peddled by its director/star, Damon Packard, to an exceedingly disinterested world, and is now being given away free to any and all takers (how I received my copy - I'm a sucker for free stuff!!), receiving various terse responses.) His whining mother all but disowns him over an eating disorder and he wanders the streets trying to avoid altercations with police, dogs, hollywood mainstream pap, guns, the memory of Vietnam, racism... actually the list of themes here is so large it amounts to a state of paranoia almost unparalleled in cinema history.
There's a subplot in which his sister runs through high-rise estates and theme-parks, looking like a reject from a Rollin or Argento flick and suffering from PCP flashbacks. Steven Spielberg (not the man himself of course, but a rather convincing(ish) actor) even makes an appearance at one point, early in his career, and comes across as a demented hack; which, of course we all, lovingly, know him to be... :)
Very little cohesive narrative is evident throughout and, in true b-movie tradition, all dialogue has been dubbed in post-production... badly. What begins as a mildly irritating whine however soon becomes a grating annoyance whenever anyone opens their mouth or even moves. Some of the sound is completely overdone to point up the comedy (some nice Edith Massey-esque gross-out moments for instance), but other times it just gets in the way of the film - the foley "artists" must have had a field day with the creepy THX surround sound capabilities!! Picture quality makes it look like a reject 70s drive-in flick, and indeed there are some moments where that is appropriate (like the welcome splicing of clips from ABC specials, the gloriously lurid intro and outro sequences with Tony Curtis, s****y trailers and the "Golden Guru" flashback), however the majority is just plain hard to look at. There is, however some great "geurilla news" style editing late in the piece and a warped journey that looks like the cameraman was handed a night-vision camera, some lysergic and told "just follow me", as the director/star battles his way through roller-coasters, big screen Hollywood misadventures and even Schindler's List: The Ride!! in his search for self-fulfilment.
The film's publicity states that it is "something to bring JOY and LOVE and HAPPINESS... in a time of apathy and dysphoric gloom...," but really only seems to become the thing that it hates most in its apparent anger at "issues". Film ends up feeling like a personal rant from a director who has "potential" (as can be evidenced by the genre stylings in the scant previews/special features), but is still a great wee piece of (post-post-??)modern exploitation that deserves to be seen by those of us who like their films a little (or even a lot) off-centre and not spoonfed.
Unable to peddle his watches on the pavement, a fat, middle-aged little-boy-lost (in all the worst senses of that phrase!!) tries to scratch out a living in a world that has all but forgotten him and glossed over atrocities of the past. No one is interested, and when he attempts to give away his merchandise he is almost killed for his philanthropy. (Strangely, art seems to imitate life here, as this is also the story of the distribution of this film - apart from a couple of screenings to a small handful of paying customers at underground festivals, it has been peddled by its director/star, Damon Packard, to an exceedingly disinterested world, and is now being given away free to any and all takers (how I received my copy - I'm a sucker for free stuff!!), receiving various terse responses.) His whining mother all but disowns him over an eating disorder and he wanders the streets trying to avoid altercations with police, dogs, hollywood mainstream pap, guns, the memory of Vietnam, racism... actually the list of themes here is so large it amounts to a state of paranoia almost unparalleled in cinema history.
There's a subplot in which his sister runs through high-rise estates and theme-parks, looking like a reject from a Rollin or Argento flick and suffering from PCP flashbacks. Steven Spielberg (not the man himself of course, but a rather convincing(ish) actor) even makes an appearance at one point, early in his career, and comes across as a demented hack; which, of course we all, lovingly, know him to be... :)
Very little cohesive narrative is evident throughout and, in true b-movie tradition, all dialogue has been dubbed in post-production... badly. What begins as a mildly irritating whine however soon becomes a grating annoyance whenever anyone opens their mouth or even moves. Some of the sound is completely overdone to point up the comedy (some nice Edith Massey-esque gross-out moments for instance), but other times it just gets in the way of the film - the foley "artists" must have had a field day with the creepy THX surround sound capabilities!! Picture quality makes it look like a reject 70s drive-in flick, and indeed there are some moments where that is appropriate (like the welcome splicing of clips from ABC specials, the gloriously lurid intro and outro sequences with Tony Curtis, s****y trailers and the "Golden Guru" flashback), however the majority is just plain hard to look at. There is, however some great "geurilla news" style editing late in the piece and a warped journey that looks like the cameraman was handed a night-vision camera, some lysergic and told "just follow me", as the director/star battles his way through roller-coasters, big screen Hollywood misadventures and even Schindler's List: The Ride!! in his search for self-fulfilment.
The film's publicity states that it is "something to bring JOY and LOVE and HAPPINESS... in a time of apathy and dysphoric gloom...," but really only seems to become the thing that it hates most in its apparent anger at "issues". Film ends up feeling like a personal rant from a director who has "potential" (as can be evidenced by the genre stylings in the scant previews/special features), but is still a great wee piece of (post-post-??)modern exploitation that deserves to be seen by those of us who like their films a little (or even a lot) off-centre and not spoonfed.
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