visioneers Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Last week, I did some reporting from the CineVegas Film Festival, where I served as a juror. The winners were announced this weekend, and they have me wishing I had been able to see more stuff. She Unfolds By Day, Rolf Belgum's film about "a frustrated middle-aged son trying to manage his misanthropic 80-year-old mother," took home the Grand Jury Prize. A Special Jury Award went to Dark Streets, which our own Eric D. Snider gave a decent review to here. Bill Pullman took home a Special Jury Award for his performance in Your Name Here, reviewed by Eric here. The documentary jury, which included Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock, selected Beautiful Losers, about "the lives of a loose-knit group of artists in the '80s who created their own art movement outside the mainstream." Hi, My Name is Ryan, focusing on "the clown prince of the downtown Phoenix art scene," picked up a Special Documentary Jury Prize.

Most of the individual components of Visioneers are not new, nor are the film's ideas particularly deep. Yet somehow the combination, written and directed by brothers Jared and Brandon Drake -- in their first film, amazingly -- feels fresh and invigorating. It's a high-concept comedy, but it's down-to-earth and accessible, even a little touching. It's a terrific start for a pair of new filmmakers.

The setting is a dystopian version of modern-day America, where the Jeffers Corporation is the most powerful entity in the world. Even the U.S. president kowtows to the monolithic company, whose employees are called "tunts" and "goobs" and work at ill-defined tasks at various bureaucratic levels. As with most firms in dystopian movies, it's never established what, exactly, the Jeffers Corp. does, but its influence is felt everywhere. Common people greet each other with the "Jeffers salute," which looks suspiciously like flipping the bird.

Our hero is a Level 3 tunt named George Washington Winsterhammerman (Zach Galifianakis). He's the supervisor of a little pod of employees who work in a depressing office where an automated voice announces, every 60 seconds, how many minutes remain before the weekend. Everyone is generally disheartened and depressed, but this has been enhanced in recent weeks as citizens have been spontaneously combusting due to stress.

Finally, we have our first ridiculously odd film of 2008: Visioneers. Truth be told, I knew nothing about this film when Cinematical received the exclusive clip above. And if you watch that clip, you'll say "okay" and get mildly turned on by Judy Greer in a nightgown with her husband (played by the wonky Zach Galifianakis) and friend "Betty." But then you have to watch the trailer for this flick (either on the official website or after the jump). That's when Visioneers takes it up to a whole different level; one that involves lots of yelling, exploding people, middle fingers and what has to be one of the oddest stories we'll see on screen this year. Quite frankly, I cannot wait to see this.

Here's the synopsis from the site: George Washington Winsterhammerman lives an ordinary life. He has a wife, a kid, a house and a boat. Every day George gets in his minivan and goes to work as a Level Three Tunt at the Jeffers Corporation, the largest and most profitable corporation in the history of mankind. It is an utterly comfortable life, but when people around George begin exploding, he fears he might be next. George visits his doctor and learns that the dreams he's been having are a symptom of impending explosion. Unfortunately, George can't stop dreaming, and as the explosion epidemic worsens, he is forced to question the life he's been living.

Visioneers premieres at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 12th and 14th, before hitting up CineVegas (where Cinematical will review) on June 18th and 19th. (I know it's early and it's only a clip and a trailer, but I think I'm in love ...)