The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle

Narrative Feature, Emerging Visions
D: David Russo; with Marshall Allman, Natasha Lyonne, Tania Raymonde, Tygh Runyan, Matt Smith, Vince Vieluf

Modern life is rubbish, and this charmingly Adderall-ized version of life at the bottom of the trash heap knows it, celebrates it, and ultimately draws a quirky sort of hope from it. When twentysomething Dory (Allman) blows a serious mental gasket while trying to cope with his life-sucking cubicle gig, he hits the proverbial skids and ends up working the graveyard shift with a Seattle janitorial crew led by Vieluf’s philosophically inclined character O.C. Life lessons are learned, to be sure, but Russo’s hyperactive camerawork and editing – not to mention the whole subplot revolving around hallucinogenic cookies and human guinea pigs – makes for a borderline-sweet tale that’s honestly like nothing you’ve ever seen (unless, of course, you’ve seen Roy Frumkes’ Street Trash, but still). This is a stellar example of what, for lack of a better term, we’re calling “the new weird” in cinema and literature, and as such, it’s relentlessly strange, courageous, and hyperactive: a perfect mirror image of being young today.

Saturday, March 21, 11am, Alamo South Lamar

This article appears in March 20 • 2009.

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