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Films, Photos, Music, Fashion, Aesthetic, Narrative, Style, Image, Dialogue....

Monday 3 May 2010

Gentlemen Broncos

Jared Hess is the guy who directed the now classic Napoleon Dynamite and the now still pretty lame Nacho Libre. He has now made the kinda cool Gentlemen Broncos.


The film is kind of about about science fiction writing and plagiarism. It follows a young science fiction writer called Benjamin (who writes Heavy Metal style sci fi, but tamer) who's story ('The Yeast Lords'(?)) gets stolen by an 'acclaimed' writer (Chevalier, played by Jermain Clement from Flight of the Conchords) and in the midst of all this some weird guy makes a home movie from the story and the young writer's mother is trying to be fashion designer whilst hiring her son a 'guardian angel' who ends up being the star of the awful film adaptation of his story...and there's a vague love interest between the boy and the girl who produces the movie.....all the time the film cuts away to the 'Yeast Lords' story (both Benjamin's and Chevalier's version following the character 'Bronco'/'Brutus'...(formally 'Bronc-anuss' but consistently played by Sam Rockwell in different wigs) in a weird sci-fi world that looks like something from the Mighty Boosh, Flight Of The Conchords, Monty Python, Dr. Who. early Star Trek.

Makes sense?...no?!...but that doesn't matter much...


It is also another example of a bizarre and unique visual outlook of the world...or at least of Utah.


Which is where the film largely succeeds (as did Napoleon Dynamite) by portraying the 'real world' (of Utah) in a super stylized and consistently bizarre andsurreal manner...Jared Hess uses a consistent, bold mixture of mise-en-scene, colour palette, characters & costumes, and framing to convey his vision of a place. This is how the movie succeeds...whether anyone cares or not is another matter!

But Gentlemen Broncos is highly visually aware and striking, with great comedic performances and an awesome soundtrack to accompany it......but unfortunately it probably isn't as good as any of things it is like and/or inspired by....(except Utah...it may be better than the real Utah....)


...I have never been to Utah....and I do not mean the place any disrespect...I would in fact genuinely like to go there...and experience the real thing for myself!....


This is the Utah flag!

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