Brandon Colvin’s independent film series returns this Sunday at 4070 Vilas Hall with a satirical “bromantic dramedy”
The autumnal Micro-Wave Cinema Series calendar fittingly picks up where it left off at the conclusion of the spring 2016 semester with its focus on the creatively ambitious Zach Weintraub. Despite his tempered performance as the lead, Zach, in Ian Clark’s meditative A Morning Light, his latest directorial effort, Slackjaw, is anything but — a hyperactive satire of “post-recession millennial malaise and role of big pharma.” (writes Tone Madison‘s Chris Lay.)
Slackjaw, which had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland, will screen FREE in Madison this Sun, Sept 18, at 7:00p in 4070 Vilas Hall, Micro-Wave’s standard venue. As with all the series events curated by filmmaker and PhD candidate Brandon Colvin, an illuminating Q&A with Weintraub via video chat will follow, which will surely be shaped by the film’s synthesis of “slice-of-life naturalism” and fits of unpredictably idiosyncratic dance moves. Shane Scott-Travis has profiled Slackjaw as John Cassevetes directs Napoleon Dynamite (2004).
Shooting in Olympia, Washington, the film follows struggling musician Malone (Robert Malone), whose ‘burb is being invaded by a conglomerate known as EVCorp, a possible stand-in for Monsanto (and perhaps a thinly veiled nod to the fictitious Oscorp of Marvel origins). EVCorp’s local medical testing facility rewards those willing to be subjected to experimentation for research. Baited by the lure of easy money, Rob and his friend Austyn (Weintraub himself), as with the town’s other gullible denizens, are compelled to sign up to become human guinea pigs.
In the director’s chair, Weintraub uniquely softens the fragile community’s bitter polarization with sharp, tangential humor and a distinctive Pacific Northwestern mystique. If the slang of its title is any indication, the “difficult-to-discern line between kitsch and sincere societal malaise” ensures Slackjaw‘s destiny for cult acclaim (Scott-Travis), further echoed by Jeff M. Giordano‘s comparison to the offbeat comedy of Rick Alverson (Entertainment, 2015) and Joel Potrykus (Buzzard, 2014).
Entering its sixth semester of programming, the Micro-Wave Series has continued to emphasize some of the most “adventurous, provocative, and beautiful” work by prolific talents throughout North America and beyond. Perhaps the series’ mission statement is best exemplified by Weintraub as director/writer/actor/editor here.
- Slackjaw plays FREE on Sun, Sep 18, in 4070 Vilas Hall at 7:00p. A video Q&A with director Zach Weintraub will follow. For more information on the Micro-Wave Cinema Series, visit their Facebook community page.