Twisted Balloon Doc Hits Big Time

by Richard von Busack May 27th 2008 // 8:32PM

Filed under: Animation, Documentary, New Releases

Considering how much puffing is usually done to launch those "little movies that could," it's ironic that a documentary about blowing up balloons has made its way into the spotlight without an inflated media campaign. Sounds like the New York Times's Douglas Quenqua has noticed Sara Taksler and Naomi Greenfield's documentary about balloon twisting during its nationwide tour. After debuting at 2007's SXSW (Cinematical's Scott Weinberg notes the opening of Twisted: A Balloonamentary here), the film now has a solid run going at St. Louis's Landmark Tivoli theater.

Deer Park, Texas' Ralph Dewey, who uses balloon twisting as part of his gospel ministry, told the Times he isn't going to see the documentary on the grounds that there's too much uncleanliness in it. Unfortunately, some artistes twist the poor innocent balloon into hard-R and even unrated shapes, as you've probably seen at bachelorette parties and on cruise ships. The conflict between "gospel twisters" and "adult twisters" is unflinchingly depicted here, in accordance with the rule that every successful doc needs heroes, villains and conflicts. ("Michelle" seen above, supposedly paid for her house with the unholy art of adult balloon twisting.) Taksler, now a producer for The Daily Show, raised the money for the film by auctioning off the executive producer credit on eBay. And Jon Stewart himself hosts an animated sequence of the film. Twisted: A Balloonamentary opens in June in NYC.

2 Comments

Tags: Balloonamentary, Douglas Quenqua, DouglasQuenqua, Jon Stewart, JonStewart, Landmark Tivoli, LandmarkTivoli, Naomi Greenfield, NaomiGreenfield, New York Times, NewYorkTimes, Ralph Dewey, RalphDewey, Sara Taksler, SaraTaksler, Twisted

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-28-2008 @ 8:58AM

Naomi said...

The link above to the Cinematical covering of TWISTED at SXSW is wrong (it leads to an American Greeting card!) I think the link should be:

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/02/06/get-your-full-sxsw-slate-right-here/

Thanks for the coverage!

5-28-2008 @ 11:28AM

myvelocity said...

Saw this in June of '07 at the Waterfront Film Festival and loved it! I'm so glad this is starting to pop up on radar screens.

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