The grungy "idiosyncratic indie movement" (as one critic called the movement of "new Harmony Korines" that explore the most pitiful lifeforms of America's underbelly), which includes the likes of Sean Baker and the Safdie brothers, now has a new member in the form of Owen Kline and his impressive debut Funny Pages.
It stars Daniel Zolghadri (Tales from the Loop) as Robert, a young man who aspires to be an artist -- specifically, a comic strip artist. It doesn't take place in some past golden age of Sunday funnies, yet it feels like it; much like Spencer and Compartment No. 6, the film is presented through a grainy image that makes it feel remarkably "90s".
I do relate to growing up on the funnies: while others flipped through Spider-Man comics, I read Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Bloom County, The Far Side, and whatever else appeared in the Gary Larson magazines my father used to collect. (My grandmother also used to cut out the funnies of our local newspaper, which included the likes of Beetle Bailey and Zits, and staple them together into little books for me and my cousins to read.)
Of course, Robert is more into the R. Crumb stuff. His is a world of Tijuana Bibles and nauseating caricatures, and this includes the people he encounters in real life (who are among the most beautifully grotesque figures in the A24 pantheon).
Also, it contains one of the most blood-curdling screams I've ever heard in cinema and it's not even a horror film. Flanagan, eat your heart out.
It stars Daniel Zolghadri (Tales from the Loop) as Robert, a young man who aspires to be an artist -- specifically, a comic strip artist. It doesn't take place in some past golden age of Sunday funnies, yet it feels like it; much like Spencer and Compartment No. 6, the film is presented through a grainy image that makes it feel remarkably "90s".
I do relate to growing up on the funnies: while others flipped through Spider-Man comics, I read Dilbert, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, Bloom County, The Far Side, and whatever else appeared in the Gary Larson magazines my father used to collect. (My grandmother also used to cut out the funnies of our local newspaper, which included the likes of Beetle Bailey and Zits, and staple them together into little books for me and my cousins to read.)
Of course, Robert is more into the R. Crumb stuff. His is a world of Tijuana Bibles and nauseating caricatures, and this includes the people he encounters in real life (who are among the most beautifully grotesque figures in the A24 pantheon).
Also, it contains one of the most blood-curdling screams I've ever heard in cinema and it's not even a horror film. Flanagan, eat your heart out.