It's turning into a Ramones kind of week for the cinetrix [although which one I haven't yet decided]. Randy Kennedy in today's Times writes about A Hole in One, a movie debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival [ask for Aaron].
This is a film too messy to be pigeonholed. Don't believe me? Well, it stars Meat Loaf. The screenplay's inspiration is the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene Annual Report of 1953. Oh yeah, and it's the first feature film about lobotomies.
[O]ne character is based on a real neurologist, Dr. Walter Freeman, who pioneered outpatient lobotomies in the late 1940's and, before he lost his surgical privileges in the late 60's, drove around the country promoting the operation in a camper van he called the lobotomobile.[snip]
The movie, which will have its premiere on Sunday at the TriBeCa Film Festival, is a resolutely absurdist critique of 1950's conformism that has few aspirations to appeal to a mainstream audience. The story of a small-town woman (played by Michelle Williams) who wants to have a lobotomy to deal with the emotional pain caused by her murderous gangster boyfriend (Meat Loaf), the movie sometimes feels like a combination of David Lynch, Sam Peckinpah and an old high school hygiene film. Mr. Ledes said he became interested in the subject of lobotomy after he produced a performance-art piece in the early 1990's at the American Fine Arts Gallery in SoHo, based on the records of a World War II veteran who had a psychotic breakdown after the war.
To his credit, Kennedy even squeaks in the old Tom Waits chestnut: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
The cinetrix cops to being fascinated and would gladly review this flick if someone wanted to send along a screener.... Meanwhile, if anyone catches it at the festival, report back in the comments, s.v.p.
