AFF: 'Ultimate Guide to Flight'

Ultimate Guide to Flight does the impossible and makes disc golf look almost fun. I said almost.

Disc golfers are weirdly religious about the sport (sport?), and this debut feature from Scott R. Meyers (a longtime Austin A.D.) has some fun, well, poking fun at its fanatics – the obsessiveness over technique, the accompanying weed. But the film also has some quieter moments that explore the soulfulness some feel about Frisbee golf: Witness the guy who flings the against-all-odds hole in one, to an audience of none – his triumph and glee, then the slow deflation.

Shot (one suspects on the very cheap) on a lovely wooded spot in central Texas with deer sharing the same course as the golfers, Ultimate Guide to Flight is peopled with a who’s who of comic Austin actors, who play various oddballs all taking in a day at the park. Some are more natural than others – indeed, they all seem to be directed to play their scenes at different pitches, some manic, some slapstick some more thoughtful. Jonny Mars (The Happy Poet) in particular has a nicely understated turn as a groundskeeper whose day becomes sidetracked by an injured golfer. And in these last days of endless summer, Ultimate Guide to Flight’s overcast skies and sweater-clad characters provide a pleasant tease of the cooler days just around the bend.

Ultimate Guide to Flight screens Saturday, Oct. 23, 10pm at the Rollins Theatre and Monday, Oct. 25, 9:15pm at the Rollins Theatre.