DUST UP (2012)

 

In 2008, Roger Ebert wrote a piece for his SunTimes blog titled, “This is the dawning of the Age of Credulity”, in which he relates a conversation he had with Taxi Driver author Paul Schrader.  “He told me that after Pulp Fiction, we were leaving an existential age and entering an age of irony. ‘The existential dilemma,’ he said, ‘is, 'should I live?' And the ironic answer is, 'does it matter?' Everything in the ironic world has quotation marks around it. You don't actually kill somebody; you 'kill' them. It doesn't really matter if you put the baby in front of the runaway car because it's only a 'baby' and it's only a 'car'.’ In other words, the scene isn't about the baby. The scene is about scenes about babies.”

Which I feel was more than adequately boiled down by Rene Magritte in his painting, The Treachery of Images (La trahison des images, 1928–29), a painting of a pipe which he captions, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe": “This is not a pipe.” And it isn’t. It’s a painting of a pipe. “The famous pipe,” Magritte lamented. “How people reproached me for it! And yet, could you stuff my pipe? No, it's just a representation, is it not? So if I had written on my picture "This is a pipe," I'd have been lying!” (Torczyner, Harry. Magritte: Ideas and Images. p. 71.)

Taking this all further, Ebert noted about the cinematic culture around him, “We may be leaving an age of irony and entering an age of credulity. In a time of shortened attention spans and instant gratification, trained by web surfing and movies with an average shot length of seconds, we absorb rather than contemplate. We want to gobble all the food on the plate, instead of considering each bite. We accept rather than select.”

Modern movies, from this point of view, are neither self-contained nor created in a vaccuum. Every movie is made of particles from other movies. “Homage” has moved beyond the in-joke, background detail or set-piece and into literal and thematic presentation. So much of this is personified by Quentin Tarantino and his contemporaries. They’re not making movies, they’re making their versions of movies that had come before. “I told Robert [Rodriguez], ‘You made your Fistful of Dollars with El Mariachi, now’s the time to make your epic, your Once Upon a Time in the West”, sez the world’s most successful fanboy on the audio commentary for Once Upon a Time in Mexico. It’s like the self-referential humor of The Family Guy: “That’s funny because I get it.” The Inglorious Basterds was neither a remake of The Inglorious Bastards nor simply a World War II adventure, but it was Tarantino’s WWII movie. Coming up is Tarantino’s spaghetti western, Django Unchained. 

For better or worse, we’re slowly coming out of the age of irony and/or credulity because the most recent crop of movie-goers, including but not limited to the Twi-hards, are simply unaware of what came before, so every movie cliché is new to them. I remember a Twilight fan swooning over Edward because, “When he says cheesy stuff, it’s sincere because he doesn’t know it’s cheesy!” And thus we get Total Recall for this generation, Red Dawn for this generation. And this generation doesn’t know that they’re cheesy retreads, thus, they’re sincere. 

All of this is a backhanded way of introducing Ward Roberts new film, Dust Up, because it lands somewhere between ironic and post-ironic. Produced through his Drexel Box production house, Dust Up at first glance is a loving send-up of ‘70s exploitation, the “grindhouse” genre that is all the rage. Ironic because it takes the market-driven selling points of gratuitous sex, violence and mayhem and embraces them. Post-Ironic because it takes the most ludicrous of these elements to their logical conclusion. And post-credulous because it does it with sincerity, honesty and a passion for all of the sources that came before it. And in the end, Dust Up is not “Ward Roberts’ exploitation movie”; Dust Up is Ward Roberts’ Dust Up. It takes all the other-movie particles and molds them into something from his point of view and his sensibilities, and those of his collaborators, and makes something that’s both familiar and outrageous at the same time, but never seems derivative. It’s a balancing act to be sure, and on either side of the tightrope lies disaster. Fortunately, Roberts and company manage the middle walk very well. 

Dust Up is about the accidental—if not destined—collision of five people. New mom Ella and her junkie husband Herman, and two opposing forces: the stoic and enigmatic peaceful warrior Jack (Aaron Gaffney) and his Indian sidekick Mo (Devin Barry) on one end; the twisted and gleefully evil narcissistic personality Buzz on the other. Jack wears an eyepatch, a constant reminder of a tortured past as a violent soldier; Mo wears a Jay Silverheels outfit and yellow-striped tube socks, to both honor and mock his Native American forebears who have gotten rich and fat off of casino living. Buzz (Jeremiah Birkett) ingests chemicals, tortures people and declares everything to be his: “This is MY house. The House of Buzz. In the Land of Buzz. In the Time of Buzz.” 

Ella (Amber Benson) is a young mother living in a house with severe plumbing problems. Her husband Herman (fellow filmmaker Travis Betz), a roadie for Hoobastank (of all things), went a little loopy after the birth of their daughter, Lucy, and is now holed up at Buzz’s in a drug-induced, debt-heavy sabattacal. In need of clean water, Ella picks Jack’s name out of the phone book—the way of this peaceful warrior is that of the handyman. This is before Ella learns of her deadbeat spouse’s debt to psychopath, Buzz. Actually, Buzz is much more than a psychopath, more than a sociopath. He’s a charismatic, amoral, self-affirming bar owner-cum-cult leader who promises those he doesn’t like—or happens to notice—with death via dismantling at the hands of his chief thug, Mr. Lizard. What’s more amoral than a sociopath? An anthropath, perhaps? Whatever, you don’t want to owe money to Buzz. 

You know what annoys Buzz more than being owed money? Owing money to someone else. In this case, the corrupt, racist Sherriff Haggler (The Hills Have Eyes remake’s Ezra Buzzington), who wants his payoff and demands it in a most demeaning fashion. The laws of physics dictate that shit rolls downhill, to Buzz calls in poor Herman’s marker, gives him 24 hours to get the money and then has Mr. Lizard eject him from the bar in a most unfriendly fashion. 

Over the course of a few scenes, Jack becomes involved in Herman’s plight because it has become Ella’s plight. Jack is cut from the same cloth as most wayward heroes on the path of redemption—particularly Shane, according to an interview with Roberts at the Daily Grindhouse—so he isn’t likely to leave a damsel in distress. Before you jump to conclusions, he’s doing this out of pure spirit. Yes, Herman is a junkie, a bad husband, irresponsible, lazy, most likely unwashed and very much an ungrateful jerk, but these facts aren’t lost on anybody. The deeper he drags Jack (and Mo) into his pit of karmic despair, the more everyone—even Buzz!—questions why they’re bothering to help him out at all. The lesson to be taken away is if you’re going to be a selfish schlep of a person, you’d better have a pretty and capable wife and an adorable baby at home. Otherwise even Mother Theresa would be inclined to throw you to the wolves. 

As can be expected, things spiral out of control, epically and apocalyptically. Jack attempts to make good on Herman’s debt by lending him half of the money he owes Buzz in a show of good faith, but Buzz isn’t one to focus on problem-solving. In a matter of minutes, the casual morning meeting results in Buzz accidentally blowing up his bar—it’s a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of cause and effect, but the end result is that Buzz accidentally shoots one of his meth chemists mid-cook and, as we all know, meth is a most volatile and tempermental chemical potion. Emotionally, it’s the fourteen-year-old-girl of drugs.

The rest of the film could be titled “Buzz’s Bad Day”, as he punishes everyone in his path for his own misfortune. He and reason aren’t even in the same time zone, and if you’re wondering if depravity has a baseline, as far as Buzz goes, the answer is ‘no’. He does know how to whip up a freak frenzy. Unfortunately, he doesn’t choose his followers wisely. Drug-addled desert-scum aren’t known for their stamina, no matter how many barbecued human bodies they’re fed. This is best demonstrated when Buzz declares, “It’s orgy time!” and receives the same dismayed reaction as if he’d announced a pop quiz. 

Dust Up was obviously crafted to be a fun time for all, and it’s one of the rare movies, indie or otherwise, that is as much fun to watch as apparently it was to make. Behind it all are smart filmmakers who know which conventions to turn on their heads and which ones to embrace. As wacky as Dust Up is it never once tries to act like it’s better than either the genre or its audience. Unlike recent “grindhouse” movies like Hobo with a Shotgun, Dust Up wasn’t designed as a party tray of excess and nihilism. It asks you to care about its characters and then gives you characters to care about. Every one of the actors is pitch-perfect in their performances so it’s hard to single any one out. Gaffney’s a terrific hero archetype, violently opposed to violence lik Billy Jack, but with the smooth vocal tones of Joel McCrea. Barry brings just enough dry wit to Mo to comment on the insanity of things—even his own actions—without becoming hipster about it all. As Herman, Travis Betz—whose amazing allegorical demon cabaret, Lo (starring Birkett as the title character), introduced me to the majority of the versatile cast—gives the jerk of a catalyst an affability that earns a little bit of redemption at the end. Birkett doesn’t so much steal every scene he’s in as he attempts to corner the market on it. Buzz could all too easily be a cartoon villain, the word “Evil” given bushy eyebrows and pop eyeballs, but Birkett hints at a humanity buried deep beneath the viciousness and drug-induced paranoia. Both he and Jack project a loneliness and sense of loss, making them each other’s dark mirror. Perhaps the hardest job was placed on Benson’s shoulders. The filmmaker/author has the dubious honor of portraying the lone sane person in this sea of multi-colored insanity. Like Bob Newhart in all incarnations, she’s the only rational one in the room at any given time, and she does it with a sense of humor that anchors all the madness together. 

Roberts, Betz and Benson not only love film but understand it as well, as they’ve proven through this movie and previous offerings like Betz’s Joshua and Benson’s Drones (which she co-wrote and directed with Adam Busch). They’re not into the popular mash-ups of movie iconography and theme so much as they are into creating new forms from previously-used clay. As far as Dust Up goes, Roberts has taken the history of movies he loves and built upon it, rather than attempt to reflect it in some mirror he fractured himself. The result is both familiar to those who know the territory and unique at the same time. A ‘70s sex ‘n death-fest with an altruistic attitude taken from Howard Hawks westerns. A salute to what came before even as it moves forward. 

As the saying goes, “This is Dust Up. There are others like it, but this one is…” Roberts’, Drexel Box’s, and now ours. 

DRONES (2010)

Dilbert, The Drew Carey Show, The Office and Office Space have worked hard over the years to shatter the illusions built up by pro-Capitalism extravaganzas like How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying and Cash McCall. Modern entertainment has proven that corporate-culture office work can be more monotonous and soul-crushing than the first few weeks of military boot camp, certain to leave you a dry and empty husk alone in your cubicle. “Can be”, obviously; much different than “is”. Drones is the anti-“is” in this situation.
The cubicle civilization depicted in Drones is comprised of more or less comfortable workers. Unchallenged though they may be in most aspects of their lives, in and out of the office, the employees of Omnilink are not merely enduring their work-day. They work reasonably-hard doing reasonable tasks and at the end of the day, they go home. Even the artificial crises that pop up—the decreased lead time, the looming deadline—do little to jolt them from their routines. A key element in their daily existence is gossip, and that fills the space between forms and databases. Who is sleeping with who—the essential and possibly only ingredient. If Ian is such a creep, why does Miryam keep taking him back? When will Brian ever ask out Amy? These are the distractions from the database that corporate switched unwisely from its chronological to alphabetical structure. Discussions take place right out in the open because, well, the water cooler doesn’t work.

Encouraging the romantic pairing of Brian (Johnathan M. Woodward of Buffy and Firefly fame) and Amy (cult goddess Angela Bettis) is the centerpiece of Drones, setting the movie’s low-key catastrophes into motion. Office romances, you see, are discouraged by management for a reason. Breakups can lead to hostile working conditions or worse: galactic destruction. At best, it’s a distraction, so everyone would be better off keeping things professional. Unless you want a hostile race of aliens marking the human race for extinction and blowing up the whole planet? You don’t want that, would you? Bad for business.
Directed by Buffy co-stars Amber Benson and Adam Busch, Drones is a dry, droll comedy that has managed to fly under the radar for most of the film-going public. Well-received at Slamdance in 2010, theatrical exposure eluded it because of its very underemphasized nature. Critics dove into their thesaurus of clichés and hauled out that old indie standby, “quirky”, and slapped that appellation over every review. The problem is that Drones is not “quirky”. “Quirky” was coined for movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and 500 Days of Summer and anything starring Zooey Deschanel or Parker Posey (the ‘90s version of Zooey). Drones on the other hand is quite the opposite of “quirky” as it’s the most perfectly-deadpan movie to come along in such a long while.

The strong script by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker (yes, I know; shut up) posits the time-tested hypothesis that aliens walk among us and in Men in Black fashion, they’re prepping reports, Xeroxing documents and shuffling data along with the rest of us. Opening with a Powerpoint presentation that will evoke dread in anyone who has ever endured the real thing, Drones’ company Omnilink is compared to a hive, with each member playing its part for the betterment of the colony. “A bee uses its tongue to extract pollan from a flower. We at Omnilink do the same thing. We use our tongues daily, but over the phone.”

The company’s interpersonal strategy: “The buzz of a job well-done is 1) keeping your cool; 2) reaching out; 3) and interacting with others.” Co-operation is vital and everyone should do their part by visiting neighbor’s cubicles, chatting—“Say, Bob, wasn’t that a great Powerpoint presentation Peter gave this morning?” Human relationships invigorate the hive.

Which is why everyone from supply-closet king Clark (Samm Levine) to spreadsheet crusader Cooperman are pestering Brian to ask out Amy. Not that he sees any problem with that. They’ve flirted in the past, but there are doubts. “She uses capital letters in her I.M.’s,” explains Brian. “I’m more of a lowercase kind of guy.”

“Tut,” tuts Cooperman. “Relish your differences; they're as important as your sames.”
Despite the shock of catching Clark “communicating” in the supply closet and revealing that he’s an alien, Brian retrieves a box of staples and delivers them to Amy. Then pops the question. Which envokes an extremely logical response. “You’ve asked me out in return for bringing me staples. It seems…disproportionate.” But they give it a shot, meet for drinks after work and over the weekend agree that they’re “dating”. Brian hardly gives Clark’s revelation a second thought.

By Monday, Amy is so excited about their new status as a couple that she drops her own bomb on Brian: She, too, is an alien, a race called Soyka, and the copier isn’t her “pet alien robot” but a communication device through which she talks to a co-worker (Jafe) on her own planet (Elg). But this, on top of Clark’s news and the sudden pressure of dating, makes Brian freak out. Unlike Clark’s people, who merely want to enslave the human race—

Clark: Nothing will really change except that I’ll be your boss.
Brian: Can I get a raise?
Clark: Sure!
Brian: Then I’m good.

—Amy’s people want to destroy the planet for fuel. But that plan is on hold “for now”. Brian’s reaction, though, drives a wedge between him and Amy and by lunch they’re no longer dating. The next day, he preps a Powerpoint presentation in which he uses a bar graph to declare that “Amy Is A Jerk”. Still getting used to her new human emotions, Amy doesn’t take well to this sort of thing, particularly as it had nothing to do with the new Planicka account and just serves to extend the meeting. So she contacts her people and tells them that it’s time to move up the deadline. The armada, she is told, will be there sometime after lunch.
Drones pulls this oddball story together with the conceit that, like any other office, this imminent disaster is met with the same urgency as any other client demand. Not only does everyone accept Clark’s and Amy’s extraterrestrial identities in stride but they pull together to help figure out the problem before the planet is destroyed or they have to work overtime. And with this approach, Benson, Busch, Acker and Blacker manage the ultimate triumph of zero cynicism.

Unlike so much of our entertainment, particularly in the realm of “indie” or “quirky”, the Omnilink drones are not the oppressed creatures from Office Space, comprised only of tension and teeth. Drones isn’t about revenge on corporate America but instead tackles the old fashioned notion of doing your job and going home. As ironic a term that “post-ironic” has become, that’s precisely what Drones is about. There’s no winking at the audience, no elbow-nudging or cooler-than-thou posturing. It asks, quite literally, what would you do if you found out a co-worker you liked and thought you knew was going to destroy the planet where you keep all your stuff? Would you go hysterical and attack her with a paper cutter? Or would you just try to talk her out? Because neither is going to make 5pm come any sooner and one seems like it would take more effort than the other. What is the corporate cubicle-jockey’s path of least resistence? And could it be done through interoffice email?

So many things could have scuttled Drones. In the hands of showier directors with something to prove, this alien-invasion-cum-coffee-break could have gone over-the-top, bug-eyes, hysterical mugging, punchlines with the extra punch. But Benson and Busch handle the material with knowing restraint. Even when Brian is at his most hysterical, Woodward’s performance barely raises beyond pitched incredulity. The movie they made is not about madcap artificiality and because of their mature approach Drones is delivered with likable characters and funny material. Nothing is ruined in the name of appeasing the Hollywood over-the-top machine. Which, of course, is why it was deemed an impossible sell.

As of this writing Drones is only available through Amazon’s on demand streaming service or through extended cable (I happened to catch it during a free weekend of Showtime). Reviews for the film thus far either stuff it into the aforementioned “quirky” category or dismiss it outright as a “nothing new indie thing”, citing the amusing score by Jonathan Dinerstein and Dan Bern (and Busch’s band Common Rotation)—especially the appropriate opening song “Strongly-Worded Memo”—as pretentious “prog-rock. (But again, that’s the too-cool-for-you crowd for you, and forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t being a hipster no longer cool? Or being knowingly uncool make you cool?) If you can watch it without falling prey to your own misconceptions of what a “festival movie” is or is not, you might find yourself charmed by Drones’ quiet story about humanity, aliens and spreadsheets.

Hail Soyka.