Ghostbox Cowboy (2018) Reviews

• The Cult Film Your Children Will Revere, and Laugh at You for Missing

  uberpols2019-01-27

  Advice: don't go see this movie if you're looking for Something like That Thing You've Seen Before; *this is not that thing*. Don't go see this movie, in other words, if you're nervous about things like "Clearly Delineated Plot Structure" and/or get overly hung up about things like "Strictly Adhered-To Genre Conventions" -- if you do, well, you'll have only yourself to blame. Go if you want to feel something new in cinema for the first time in a very long time; go if you want to laugh hysterically (if sporadically)... at the very moment you're feeling a vague sense of horrible foreboding that this film might actually somehow be a documentary that was sent back from the future. Because this is a breathtaking and utterly novel piece of cinema -- it's as if a post-Repo Man concept by Alex Cox was written up by George Saunders... and then re-written by a coked-up, paranoid, fever-dreaming Craig Baldwin... and then handed over to the Yes Men to improv, and thereby render even more astonishing. (And yet don't misunderstand me via that mash-up: there's *nothing* derivative about this film.) Whether you ultimately decide you don't need a thing like this in your life (like some of the low ratings would suggest) or, like me, find it instead a Cinematic Hope Rejuvenator, one thing is certain: the whole of it is like nothing else you've seen. So, up to you: wanna be first to the party, and anticipate you kids' reverence for this film by about 15-20 years? Or wanna memorialize your head-scratching and confusion here with a negative review? :)

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• Dollar Tree Tycoon: Chronicle of a Failure Foretold

  egb-076762019-01-05

  This film caught me by utter surprise with its sophisticated critique of 21st-century trade relations, its razor-sharp commentary on capitalist globalization, its caustic and bleak humor, and its excellent pacing. The films takes us on a journey alongside an utterly clueless middle-aged protagonist from his moment of inspiration in a Texas dollar store )where he's dressed like a goofy millenial "bro," Affliction t-shirt and all), to his misadventures selling bootleg segways, to his ultimate destination in the "Inner Mongolian Blank Region" -- the under-construction megacity of Ordos, a sort of inverted version of the land our "cowboy" sought to escape. The film brilliantly explores the absurdities of the symbiotic relationship between a past-its-prime US and a rising "New China" without for a single moment retreating into lame explication, preachiness, or other sanctimonies. Every character is memorable, from "the Specialist" to the foul-mouthed scooter salesman, and the documentary style makes the film feel as real as anything without stretching credulity -- even when it makes a "Sorry To Bother You"-style turn into the realm of the absurd. This is one of the best U.S. indies I've seen in years, and deserves cult status! P.S. I felt obligated to leave a good review of this film considering the poor user ratings (5.5 at the time that this was written) and dearth of buzz it seems to have received from mainstream audiences.

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• Boring

  mljdarrow2019-02-02

  Boring and weird. I didn't get it. It felt like a documentary only with actors.