Written by Markus Robinson, Edited by Nicole I. Ashland
With a story from the imaginative mind of Cory Houdyshell and directed by Daniel Maggio, the unfortunately named "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-A-Thon", is anything but unfortunate. This new student film is a high dose of strange, mixed with equal parts highly entertaining science fiction, comedy and musical. Playing with an "Inception"-like idea of multi-layered dream storyline, while complex and often just down-right strange, this film may not only be the most entertaining feature length independent production this reviewer has seen in a long time, but also one of the most intriguing films I have had the privilege of reviewing all year. And I am not just saying that because I know the director personally. Seriously, I'm not!
The Plot: "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-A-Thon" centers around a boyish man named Marty Fishman (played by Wesley Houdyshell), who enjoys nothing more than hanging out with his Grandfather (he so affectionately calls his Pee Paw). When plans to surprise his Pee Paw with two tickets to see their favorite indie rock band, Hippie Cream, are shattered with the discovery of Pee Paw's impending death, Marty is compelled to find a cure. So, he does what any sane person would do when faced with such dire straits, he decides to go see one Dr. Dream and have a dream-a-thon in order to find the answer to his problems (which are somehow hidden in the deepest depths of his mind). OK, so I know I've just made this premise sound far too weird to be watchable, but "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-A-Thon" does actually work exceptionally well as a purely entertaining (and interesting) piece of filmmaking
well, once you get past the almost nonsensical first twenty minutes that is.
On top of this being an extremely intriguing story, "Marty's Magnificent Day- Go Dream-A-Thon" is an example of great low budget casting. Wesley Houdyshell, as Marty, plays a very convincing man-child and Walter Savell plays the aforementioned Pee Paw character with a veteran-like ease. But the standout performance of this film is Michael Tennant, who plays the odd ball (yet still very much evil) scientist Dr. Dream, and is simply magnificent in his role.
In the midst of my praise, I must make mention that this movie is not for everybody. With its random musical numbers, sci-fi story arch and extremely dry comedic overtone, this is the type of movie that only a fan of odd little films could enjoy. And when I say odd, in no way do I mean that it is not well written, not well directed or doesn't try to engage with its audience. Quite the contrary, due to some interesting directorial choices from Maggio and a well structured story by Cory Houdyshell, "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-A-Thon" is prearranged in such a way that (like a good "Twilight Zone") it pushes audiences to the brink of dissatisfaction and then just as easily reels them back in until the movie becomes one that is impossible to resist.
Side Note: Yes, there are some low-budget issues here; examples: some of the songs during the musical numbers aren't amplified enough to hear any of the lyrics and near the end of the film there seems to have been a continuity issue with the black and white format, which the filmmakers had been playing with throughout the film; but in the context of the story, all of this (surprisingly) only adds to the quirkiness of it all.
Final Thought: Shame on Cinequest for not showing this film, because even though "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-A-Thon" does meander at times, and again, the entire visual concept here may be a little too "out there" for some audiences to grasp on to, really everything else about it works. And it works mainly because throughout its bludgeoning weirdness, it contains a smartly written story riddled with symbolism and entertaining/quirky asides, which only become more and more intriguing as it reaches its finality. Low budget be damned, after watching this film, it is all too apparent that there are some very talented filmmakers at work here.
As of right now "Marty's Magnificent Day-Glo Dream-a-Thon" isn't playing in any type of wide or limited release, but hopefully that will all change soon.
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