On the Road with Judas

This is not one of my twenty-seven favorite films, but it really is worth the watch.

Having-a-plot-line wise, "On the Road with Judas" is a bit lacking, but it is cohesive with the way it was made and was intended to be. See, instead of the basic book-to-movie adaptation, the film suggests that the book (written by writer/director J.J. Lask) has already been made into a movie, and a lot of the footage is interviews with the "actors" in the "movie," as well as the "real" people whom the book was "based on". A little confusing, but it works.

The "double-life" description really doesn't do the film justice.

What was really interesting was the director Q&As afterward (I saw it as SIFF), for it ends up that J.J. Lask (who played the interviewer in the movie) had each of the actors read his book, and then he interviewed them, in character, improv-style. The rest of the movie was written afterward, based on what they said in the interviews.

Also, Aaron Ruell is just adorable.

Oh how I haaated this movie for the first half hour! It begins with a mishmash of unrelated scenes, half a dozen actors switching roles without warning, and lots of mumbling non-sequitur banter that could've been the rejected lines from Pulp Fiction.

That's not what made me hate it, though. What made me hate it was the idea that the director seemed to be trying too hard for that "indie" feel: using lots of random, quirky images for the sake of being random and quirky. I swear I came this close to going home and watching reruns of The Partridge Family instead.

But somewhere after the half hour mark, a story starts to emerge. Several stories, actually. "On the Road with Judas" teases us with a crime story, a love story, a tale of friendship betrayal, and of course the story of a man who is rapidly losing his grip of reality. It is ultimately the last story that shines and makes this a great film.

The plot is basically irrelevant so I won't bother talking about that. Instead this becomes a film of philosophical depth, attacking the question of reality vs. fiction (truth vs. intentions) and the infinite conflict that falls on the poor sap who's in charge of it all.

If you've seen the excellent film "Synecdoche NY" which came out several months after "On the Road with Judas", you'll definitely notice many parallels between the two. Both films tell the story of a writer who is attempting to write about his own life as it happens. As real life and written pages become intertwined, the task becomes impossible, confusing, maddening.

Mixing reality and fiction in a film is tough for a filmmaker to do without totally losing the audience (which I think may have happened here, judging by IMDb's low rating of 4.3). Certainly it requires a lot more audience effort than your standard linear storyline. But many films have pulled it off, notably: "Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story", "American Splendor", "Beyond the Sea", "The Science of Sleep" and the aforementioned "Synecdoche NY". "On the Road with Judas" fits right in with the rest as a challenging yet ultimately rewarding experience for people who can bend their perceptions of reality. The ending is classic.

A final word about the soundtrack: nice! Being set in 1991-1993, the film features some interesting versions of songs by Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence", Modern English "Melt with You", and others plus some very nice classical sonatas such as Debussy's "Claire the Lune".

Overall, this is a very deep and powerful movie disguised as a "fun romp" (or whatever the dumb DVD cover says). If you can make it past the first half hour, I think you'll really enjoy it.

This played Sundance I think last year. It's crazy. It's like a not-at-all creepy David Lynch. It's very hard to explain. But you have a writer of an autobiographical book, and the book is being adapted into a movie. The film follows the author, the actor playing the author, the filmmaker making the movie, and also the author of the REAL book/actual director of the movie, JJ Lask.

If you think Charlie Kaufman is meta, then you haven't even scratched the surface of On The Road With Judas. There are some of my favorite actors in the film too - Kevin Corrigan, Aaron Ruell (from Napoleon Dynamite), and that guy from American Pie Eddie Kaye Thomas is in it too. It's a real mindfuck of a movie - it's kind of like the movie version of a really hard sudoku problem, but really rewarding when it all comes together.

And unlike a lot of other films that are about themselves - it never sacrifices human emotion for the sake of it's cleverness. At it's very core is an honest love story, that is very well drawn.

Buffet of excellence in movie making perhaps.

I saw this film in Columbia, MO and I honestly have to say that it's one of the most innovative independent films to come out in the past few years.

It's a beautifully crafted narrative that is overflowing with young talent. It seems like a really complex, trying-too-hard independent film, but it couldn't be further from that. It's actually a fun-loving hip comedy for the most part, with a solid love story going under the current.

It's reassuring that movies like this are still made. Movies that are this brave and unflinching in their vision are few and far between so you better see this while it's out since it will be a while until another movie like this comes out.

Just watched a Sundance showing with an appreciative audience, On Jan 23rd in Park City. The theater was crowded with a 20 something crowd eager for something different. What they got was a confusing but compelling work which blends documentary style with dramatic insight. Touching, funny and twisted themes will keep the audience puzzled but engaged. The author and director JJ Lask has taken his well received book and created a screen play that works well in the Sundance arena but may be difficult to sell to a broader audience. Great performances, original writing and editing make this otherwise hard to watch film worth the effort. The score was dense with original and contemporary work.