Fustfick

Freddy Got Fingered may not be the "laughiest" picture of the year, but it is surely the most original. It remindes me more of the challenging work of Godard or Bunuel than of the slew of recent "gross out" comedies that stink up our screens. Illogical and abusurd, ridiculous, funny, and disturbing, I guarantee it is unlike any film you've ever seen.

I sat in the theater, amazed, as Gord Brody (Green) leaves home in a rush on his skateboard...to meet up with his parents at the bus depot. Why is he meeting them there, if they all live together? There at the depot, his dad presents him with a car. Why bother going to the depot if his dad's going to give him a car? Then, after clearly establishing that Gord is going to Hollywood to sell his "cartoons" and after a close up on his new license plate reveals their location to be Oregon...a superimposed map of the coast shows us (ala Raiders of the Lost Arc) Gord's path from Oregon to Hollywood.

Redundant? Of course. And hillarious. Green makes a mockery of tired film cliches and crap mise-en-scene. Then, ten minutes into the movie, it brilliantly deconstructs itself. Anthony Michael Hall (as cartoon mogul Dave Davidson) gripes that Gord's drawings aren't bad...but they just don't make sense, they're not funny, they're stupid, and entertainment needs to be inspirational. Oh does it?

Kudos, Mr. Green, for your uncompromising debut.

Kurt Voss must be the most underrated director in the history of the cinema. I became a fan after travelling to Thousand Oaks for a screening of his excellent "Horseplayer," primarily due to The Pixies presence on the soundtrack. I was impressed, to say the least.

Do not let the presence of a post-John Hughes Molly Ringwald dissuade you, "Baja" is not to be missed. A clever and mean twisting and turning plot gives way to an unusually compassionate ending. Lance Henrickson proves not only to be a great tough-guy (as per usual), but a fantastic comedian. He deftly delivers some of the most acid-tongued lines in recent memory, "What is there a grape-pickers convention going on here?"

Voss' directorial style is understated, brilliantly allowing his sardonic wit to bubble forth without pretension. His dialogue is taught and ripe with honest laughs, rather than pandering to the plethora of pop-culture references masquerading as "snappy dialogue" in so many neo-noirs today.

Check out "Baja" and keep an eye on Kurt Voss.