On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight film choose — one thing bizarre from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as skilled by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s suggestion.
The Pitch: Why Are We Entertained By This?
Each Neil Hamburger stand-up set is a passionate rejection of the concept the man telling jokes on stage ought to endear himself to the viewers in any method.
The fictional comic, portrayed by Gregg Turkington in comedy golf equipment and on speak exhibits for over 20 years, has constructed a cult following for meticulously urinating on the artwork type to which he’s devoted his life. He takes the stage in a Sixties tuxedo that’s the sartorial equal of a half-cantaloupe crammed with rancid cottage cheese. His hair is at all times sculpted into the form of a skunk that’s been run over by a number of semi-trucks. Clutching three gin and tonics beneath his arm, he clears copious quantities of phlegm from his throat earlier than spitting out vile, borderline incoherent jokes like, “Why does E.T. the Further Terrestrial love the style of Reese’s Items? As a result of that’s what cum tastes like on his planet.”
It’s a superb act with one flaw: The viewers at all times laughs. Turkington’s followers relish his wicked subversion of the medium, so his dwell exhibits by no means seize the bleakness that may transpire if Neil Hamburger sincerely carried out his “jokes” for an unsuspecting crowd.
Rick Alverson’s “Entertainment” (2015) rectifies that by creating Neil Hamburger right into a three-dimensional human being: a small-time comedian who has been completely damaged by his pursuit of fame but stays unwilling (or unable) to alter the behaviors that annihilated him. “Leisure” is as abrasive and unwelcoming because the act that impressed it, by no means giving audiences an actual cause to love The Comic (as Turkington’s character is credited). As an alternative, it lets us marinate in his odiousness as his existential disaster turns into a mirrored image on the roles that artwork and leisure play in our lives. The result’s a pleasant fusion of other comedy and arthouse storytelling that hits significantly laborious when watched after midnight.
“Leisure” is to highway journey films what Neil Hamburger is to stand-up: the important thing parts are all there, however they’ve been ripped aside and lifelessly rearranged. The opening shot exhibits The Comic stepping onto a jet — presumably to fly to a gig — solely to disclose that it’s an deserted piece of junk within the Mojave Desert that’s been was a rinky-dink vacationer attraction. Like every part else he encounters, it’s a reminder that his life has amounted to a nugatory reproduction of the dream he got down to chase.
As The Comic meanders by the desert to play a string of gigs at dive bars and prisons, his monotonous existence — and tragic private life — lulls us into the sort of trance {that a} comedian would ultimately face after months on the highway. At a sure level, it turns into laborious to differentiate whether or not the movie has gotten stranger or if watching it has merely damaged our brains.
The genius of “Leisure” lies in Turkington’s unparalleled means to play passive-aggressive losers who see the world’s refusal to adapt to their popular culture tastes as a catch-all excuse for why their lives suck. Squint laborious sufficient, and also you’ll see traces of his “On Cinema at the Cinema” character when he seethes about comedy golf equipment offering insufficient anti-heckling safety. If the fictional Turkington from that present was in a position to assessment “Leisure” (assuming Tim Heidecker really let him speak about films for as soon as), I’m assured he’d give it 5 luggage of popcorn and throw in some stationary to put in writing a suicide notice. —CZ
The Aftermath: Somebody Suffered to Make It
With actors joining screenwriters on strike today, it’s enjoyable to contemplate what Neil Hamburger would possibly do in Hollywood’s present state of affairs. The anti-comic’s nauseating means to verbally invade private area would undoubtedly assist him on picket strains, and I’d personally wish to see Neil’s signage outdoors studio execs’ workplaces. (“What’s the distinction between the AMPTP and the American flag?”)
And but, it’s virtually inconceivable to think about the pasty-skinned persona bothering himself with an look on Los Angeles sidewalks. The final shot of “Leisure” — our beleaguered humorist alone in a resort room, shuddering with as many sobs as laughs, cloaked within the glow of a tv displaying himself — appears a extra doubtless scene. In the long run, The Comic is caught. If producers efficiently power actors out of their houses (as one report claimed they have been inclined to do earlier this week), the resort room could be significantly bleak however becoming.
That is to say nothing of the actual Turkington’s stance on the existential threats dealing with SAG-AFTRA, after all. However Alverson’s melancholic portrait of Hamburger’s alter-ego and his small, roadside sliver of the Hollywood machine feels particularly well timed as artists band collectively to confront the trade permitting them their stage. Like so many earlier than it, “Leisure” is a movie that tells the story of Hollywood’s infamously dangerous marriage to itself: a cyclical codependency between artists and their employers, audiences and execs alike, all too insistent on punishing ardour with ache. Solely The Comic received’t go quietly, like him or not.
Hamburger is new to me as a personality (I’d heard of him possibly as soon as earlier than screening “Leisure”), however I’m acquainted with his sort-of-an-act. Tim Robinson involves thoughts as a recent golden boy in an extended line of comedians specializing in psychological self-immolation, although within the case of the late Chris Farley self-flagellation was extra prefer it. Neil is extra theatrically off-putting than most; shout out to that Madonna pet food breastfeeding bit. However greater than that, “Leisure” jolted my senses with its juxtaposition of non-public sacrifice — why doesn’t his daughter choose up? — and the cruel silence of unappreciated makes an attempt at absurdism.
When John C. Reilly (the leeeegendary John C. Reilly) prompts The Comic to do one among his jokes over dinner within the desert, the nonplussed jokester flatly refuses. “I don’t need to do it right here,” he says. “Leisure” is one thing of a puzzle of motivation on this method. The Comic isn’t hungry for each highlight, and his time on the precise mic sours extra with every cease. I’d be fascinated by seeing a Neil Hamburger dwell present sooner or later, if solely to assist myself suppose The Comic’s anguish ended.
I’m as disturbed as anybody by a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Younger gang-bang joke, nevertheless it was Alverson’s tragically indifferent perspective on this sluggish loss of life of a dream I discovered murderous. The unhappy clown character supplied a recognizable motif within the seriocomic fishbowl filling with bleach that’s this character examine (bear in mind when the lil man pooped within the hat? What a pleasant break!), nevertheless it virtually made me really feel laughed at to return to The Comic, sweaty and struggling.
All performers however comics specifically sacrifice one thing, and nowhere is that this extra crystallized than within the midnight film sphere. Turkington has executed one thing extraordinary together with his profession and with Hamburger, crafting a singularly human perspective in all its grotesqueness. There’s a flawed brilliance in “Leisure” I’m assured one may by no means obtain with out bonkers masochists like Neil — not to mention educate to A.I. On the birthing scene, I’ve nothing to supply. I did snicker. —AF
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