August 02, 2005
Chumscrubber Comes To Austin
By Damon McCullar
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Chum: 1.Bait usually consisting of oily fish ground up and scattered on the water. 2.An intimate friend or companion. This remarkable film by Arie Posin focuses a microscope on the skeletons that live in the closets of suburbia's Type A personalities: Their kids. This is an amazing film that explores the toll that over-medication, violence and neglect is taking on the youngest generation of Americans that are coming of age.
In the movie, Dean Stiffle discovers the body of his best friend, Troy, hanging in his bedroom as his mother throws a party. Turns out that Troy has been the main supplier of "happy pills" to the communities kids. When the drugs dry up, Billy, a local thug, and his gang try to blackmail Dean into getting Troy's stash by kidnapping his brother. Only they foul up and kidnap the son of the local sheriff.
Chumscrubber opened to mixed reviews at The Sundance Film Festival and was featured this spring during South By Southwest here in Austin. The limited opening takes place on Friday here in Austin and in Dallas. The unlimited opening is on August 26th.
I recommend all of our readers see the film and talk about what they got from the it in the comments. And please, if you like it, recommend it to a friend, the producer is counting on word-of-mouth to make this movie a success.
Thanks to KT for suppling me with the locations both here and in Dallas:
8/5/2005
DOBIE TWIN THEATRE, AUSTIN, TX
ARBOR CINEMAS @ GREAT HILLS 8, AUSTIN, TX
AMC GRAPEVINE MILLS 30, GRAPEVINE, TX
CINEMARK 24 (THE LEGACY), PLANO, TX
MAGNOLIA 5, DALLAS, TX
Posted by Damon McCullar at August 2, 2005 09:58 PM
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Really? An amazing film? Wow, we have two different takes on it.
Good: good acting, especially by the kids. Bad: Chumscrubber thing. Didnt add anything to the movie. Voice over narrating at the end came out of nowhere. Adult characters were too 2-dimensional.
Overall: interesting, but I wouldnt say it was groundbreaking or amazing.
Xerixes,
I agree that the adult characters were two-dimensional. However, I think this was done on purpose. They seemed to me to be archetypes that helped set the stage. And as for the Chumscrubber bit, I didn't get that either. I did speak to the director about it and he helped frame it for me. You see, the Chumscrubber was a survior (survived the nuclear holocaust) and thereby became a hero to the kids in the movie. He was a reminder to them that no matter how tough it becomes, you can survive. Just my two cents.
I saw the film back during SXSW and loved it. If you are a fan of the Donnie Darko, American Beauty dramedy tpye of movies, check this one out. The cast is amazing.
I was pleasantly surprised. Visually the movie was very slick, as you would expect. But it wasn't ironic or brooding as I feared it might be. There are enought lightly absurd moments to make sure of that.
Another facet of the chumscrubber that isn't really explored is the video game-violence-disconnection theme. By the end of the movie I thought this was just as important as drug involvement.
I also saw the SXSW screening and really enjoyed it. The cast is perfect and the writing is very subtle. The movie deals with familar themes but spins them in a unique way.
Damon,
Sure, I could see the idea of the outsider, walking through the land of the living dead applicable to Dean in suburbia. The quote "but what kind of life is this?" (or similar, I cant remember exactly) was a good one.
However, at the end of the day, my take on the Chumscrubber thing was that if it needed to be explained (outside the movie), then it probably shouldnt have been in the movie.
Also, afterwards, when Bonnie/Ari were talking about how they had a new take on teenagers and the hypocrisy of suburbia I couldnt help think that I could name 10 movies off the top of my head that deal with the same issue.
Not trying to trash the movie, it was ok. I just didnt think it was groundbreaking or terribly unique...
Anyway, we'll see how it fares next week when it opens!
Here's a review from Ain't it Cool News.http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=20907
