The democratization afforded by the cheapness and convenience of video-shot features is beginning to make Andy Warhol's dictum about fame all too real.
This documentary is a case in point: Widely compared to the stylistically similar "American Movie", this portrait of the show business aspirations of a group of white trash, trailer park denizens in northern Florida forces the audience to spend 90 minutes with people who they would normally cross the street to avoid.
The charms of willful eccentricity, at least as evidenced by this latest cinematic essay, are beginning to wear a bit thin. "Mule Skinner Blues" is currently playing an exclusive engagement at New York's Cinema Village, with a national rollout to follow.
Filmmaker Stephen Earnhart encountered his dubious cast of characters while shooting a music video near Jacksonville. One of the extras was Beanie Andrews, an ex-shrimper and longtime alcoholic who by his own account has "been in the entertainment business for 60 years," although he doesn't elaborate as to what capacity. It seems that Andrews' lifelong dream has been to appear in a horror movie as a gorilla. Thus, a project is born: "Turnabout is Fair Play", a short film starring Andrews and made by a collection of similarly artistically inclined neighbors. These include: screenwriter Larry Parrot, a janitor with a mail order bride and a fixation with horror movies
Annabelle Lea, a costume designer whose long deceased bulldog is kept in a freezer in the backyard (she feels taxidermy would be too disrespectful)
Miss Jeanie, a seventysomething singer with a mean yodel
Ricky Lix, a short tempered, hard drinking guitarist
and fellow musician Steve Walker, who boasts of his lovemaking abilities, which include the ability to hold an erection for over two hours.
While the film is admirably restrained in terms of not overtly ridiculing its absurd cast of characters, neither does it provide the context or emotional resonance that would make it more than a cinematic freak show, despite its attempt to make a statement about the universality of show business aspirations and the desire for creative fulfillment. What one takes away from it will depend on the amount of enjoyment garnered by witnessing the Southern Gothic quirkiness on display, and a little of that goes a long, long way.
MULE SKINNER BLUES
Presented by Clive Barker & Sundance Channel in association with Solaris
Credits:
Director: Stephen Earnhart
Producers: Stephen Earnhart, Victoria Ford
Executive producers: Greg O'Connor, Gavin O'Connor
Director of photography: Victoria Ford
Editor: Ellen Goldwasser
Sound: Jonathan Miller
Composer: John M. Davis.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
This documentary is a case in point: Widely compared to the stylistically similar "American Movie", this portrait of the show business aspirations of a group of white trash, trailer park denizens in northern Florida forces the audience to spend 90 minutes with people who they would normally cross the street to avoid.
The charms of willful eccentricity, at least as evidenced by this latest cinematic essay, are beginning to wear a bit thin. "Mule Skinner Blues" is currently playing an exclusive engagement at New York's Cinema Village, with a national rollout to follow.
Filmmaker Stephen Earnhart encountered his dubious cast of characters while shooting a music video near Jacksonville. One of the extras was Beanie Andrews, an ex-shrimper and longtime alcoholic who by his own account has "been in the entertainment business for 60 years," although he doesn't elaborate as to what capacity. It seems that Andrews' lifelong dream has been to appear in a horror movie as a gorilla. Thus, a project is born: "Turnabout is Fair Play", a short film starring Andrews and made by a collection of similarly artistically inclined neighbors. These include: screenwriter Larry Parrot, a janitor with a mail order bride and a fixation with horror movies
Annabelle Lea, a costume designer whose long deceased bulldog is kept in a freezer in the backyard (she feels taxidermy would be too disrespectful)
Miss Jeanie, a seventysomething singer with a mean yodel
Ricky Lix, a short tempered, hard drinking guitarist
and fellow musician Steve Walker, who boasts of his lovemaking abilities, which include the ability to hold an erection for over two hours.
While the film is admirably restrained in terms of not overtly ridiculing its absurd cast of characters, neither does it provide the context or emotional resonance that would make it more than a cinematic freak show, despite its attempt to make a statement about the universality of show business aspirations and the desire for creative fulfillment. What one takes away from it will depend on the amount of enjoyment garnered by witnessing the Southern Gothic quirkiness on display, and a little of that goes a long, long way.
MULE SKINNER BLUES
Presented by Clive Barker & Sundance Channel in association with Solaris
Credits:
Director: Stephen Earnhart
Producers: Stephen Earnhart, Victoria Ford
Executive producers: Greg O'Connor, Gavin O'Connor
Director of photography: Victoria Ford
Editor: Ellen Goldwasser
Sound: Jonathan Miller
Composer: John M. Davis.
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 93 minutes...
- 4/26/2002
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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