Cinema41 Presents 'Schizopolis'

The Cinema41 collective this week brings Steven Soderbergh's Schizopolis to the big screen.

Now just to figure out what that means.

The Cinema41 part is easy enough: The cinematic collective is now two years in to its work of bringing indie films to Austin audiences. And the screening, too, is mostly straightforward: free, BYOB, and at the Salvage Vanguard Theater. But it's the Schizopolis part of the equation that presents problems.

Normally, at this point in the blog post, it'd be polite of us to provide a quick summary of the film – which Soderbergh wrote, directed, and starred in – but seeing as it's what Chronicle critic Marjorie Baumgarten called "a fractured comic narrative" that "audiences are going to have a hard time tidily summarizing," that proves difficult. Try to run the Scientology-plus-self-help-times-exterminator-to-the-power-of-nonsense calculus yourself and you risk injury. Indeed, it might just be easier to remind readers that, as the trailer clearly states:

"In the event that you find certain sequences or ideas confusing, please bear in mind that this is your fault, not ours. You will need to see the picture again and again until you understand everything."

And as such, even if you've already seen it, you'd probably do well to see its bizarre antics again. And if you haven't? Well, Cinema41 welcomes you to round one.

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Cinema 41 screens Schizopolis Thursday, April 11, 8pm (doors at 7pm), at the Salvage Vanguard (2803 Manor Rd.). The free event is BYOB. Visit www.cinema41.com for more.