http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/screens/2009-10-23/899147/

Austin Film Festival: 'Simmons On Vinyl'

By Marc Savlov, October 23, 2009, 4:23pm, Picture in Picture

Let it never be said that director Mark Potts doesn't know his way around a massively accurate and devastatingly comedic pop-cultural metaphor.

To wit, "Life is like Lost. If once one question gets answered, then -- pow!-- fifty more! And then the next thing you know there's some invisible guy in the cabin trying to tell everybody what to do, and then all of the sudden there's two islands, and then they get back! And how did they get back?! And then they gotta go back, again!"

That's the baby-saddled but completely happy with his lot in life Dwight haranguing his ladykiller pal (and Mitch Hedberg doppelganger) Dwayne (William Brand Rackley) in the wake of one of those "Hey, dude, where's my baby?" moments that, metaphorical or otherwise, seem to crop up just as often in real life as they do in microbudgeted buddy pics like this.

Comparisons to Kevin Smith's Clerks are way too facile for Simmons On Vinyl, although scrawny blond Dwayne is paired with hefty best friend Zeek (Mark Potts), and the bottom line in their take-no-prisoners back-and-forth is, ultimately, the true nature of male friendship. Zeek's marginal quest to score points with a girl he'll probably never get -- and one far below his station, although he'd never guess it -- is the four cylinder, um, stroker that drives Potts' realistically quirky comic gem.

Beyond that, it's the Abbot and Costello-esque repartee between Rackley and Potts that makes the film instantly memorable, though. If these two aren't best friends in the real world, they damn well should be.

Simmons On Vinyl screens Sunday, Oct. 25, at 6:30pm.