Laguna Ave

I was surprised by this great little film - it has great character, it's well directed, strange and surprising. It's like coming across "Eraserhead" back in the day. A true delight to find. It's goofy and fun and I urge you to see it if you like a little silly drug-filled fun. I hope to see more from these guys.

I think I see where they tried to go with this- an attempt at a Hunter S Thompson-type comedy- but it didn't work for me at all. (And anyway, there's already Hunter S Thompson and enough imitators.) I propose that the favorable reviews are from friends because i doubt an impartial individual would give this movie a high rating. Some good ideas but really amateur acting wrecked any chance of this coming out well. I made it halfway through but almost bailed when I first heard the (supposed) French accent. Yikes.

Russell (Russell Steinberg) was a musician but then an accident cost him his hand, so now he lives in a Los Angeles apartment complex with his girlfriend Rita (Stephanie Brait) and he's just lost his last job because he keeps falling asleep at work. And then he sneaks back in and leaves a dump on the boss's desk, which proves that he's in no way ready for the world of adults. So while Rita keeps leaving for mysterious business meetings "up north" that she refuses to discuss with him, he ends up meeting the stylish, mysterious and very tall Gary (James Markham Hall Jr., nephew of Predator actor Kevin Peter Hall) and gets a new hand, a new outlook and well, he pretty much escapes from a movie that's a black and white character study into a conspiracy comedy that combines equal parts of Tetsuo and Scanners with a side dish of Southland Tales. And it's all in black and white. Gary is a believer in acceleration, a critical and social theory that proposes that social, economic, cultural and libidinal change should be pushed from within to create further radical social change. Seeing as how he's been laid off and wants revenge as well, it seems only strangely cosmically perfect that Russell and Gary join forces. Also, Russell has fantasies where he's some kind of biomechanical black metal god, so there's that. Written by Paul Papadeas and directed by David Buchanan, this movie probably cost even less than the last streaming slasher or horror anthology that came my way, but is filled with more ideas and crazy moments than thirty of those films put together.

I was surprised by this great little film - it has great character, it's well directed, strange and surprising. It's like coming across "Eraserhead" back in the day. A true delight to find. It's goofy and fun and I urge you to see it if you like a little silly drug-filled fun. I hope to see more from these guys.

Russell (Russell Steinberg) was a musician but then an accident cost him his hand, so now he lives in a Los Angeles apartment complex with his girlfriend Rita (Stephanie Brait) and he's just lost his last job because he keeps falling asleep at work. And then he sneaks back in and leaves a dump on the boss's desk, which proves that he's in no way ready for the world of adults. So while Rita keeps leaving for mysterious business meetings "up north" that she refuses to discuss with him, he ends up meeting the stylish, mysterious and very tall Gary (James Markham Hall Jr., nephew of Predator actor Kevin Peter Hall) and gets a new hand, a new outlook and well, he pretty much escapes from a movie that's a black and white character study into a conspiracy comedy that combines equal parts of Tetsuo and Scanners with a side dish of Southland Tales. And it's all in black and white. Gary is a believer in acceleration, a critical and social theory that proposes that social, economic, cultural and libidinal change should be pushed from within to create further radical social change. Seeing as how he's been laid off and wants revenge as well, it seems only strangely cosmically perfect that Russell and Gary join forces. Also, Russell has fantasies where he's some kind of biomechanical black metal god, so there's that. Written by Paul Papadeas and directed by David Buchanan, this movie probably cost even less than the last streaming slasher or horror anthology that came my way, but is filled with more ideas and crazy moments than thirty of those films put together.

I think I see where they tried to go with this- an attempt at a Hunter S Thompson-type comedy- but it didn't work for me at all. (And anyway, there's already Hunter S Thompson and enough imitators.) I propose that the favorable reviews are from friends because i doubt an impartial individual would give this movie a high rating. Some good ideas but really amateur acting wrecked any chance of this coming out well. I made it halfway through but almost bailed when I first heard the (supposed) French accent. Yikes.