In 1999, documentary filmmaker Chris Smith scored a nonfiction-feature classic with American Movie, profiling a Wisconsin guy's struggles as a backwoods filmmaker-actor, trying to make and exhibit a 16mm horror short on the meager budget and misfit volunteer crew. In the internet/digital era, however, everyone is now a filmmaker - or here, in the case of Kuyashii Gonzo creator and star Jeff Frumess, filmmaker-podcaster.
Frumess, of White Plains, New York, here offers his own high-speed/strobe-edited/motor-mouthed goofball production diary on trying to finish a horror-gangster (we think) movie called Gouge Away. What, besides excessive length, makes Kuyashii Gonzo: Blood Vision and Chaos Magic more than just a wayyy overlong "disc extra"? Good question.
Frumess is part of the "micro-cinema" movement, of features done from anywhere between $100,000 to zero, shooting with motley collaborators well outside the studio-system orbit, and often deploying plotlines of horror, crime, gore, and transgression. Frumess, a former waiter with sort of a rock-punk background (plugs for The Misfits abound), paid off high-end video gear thanks to a lawsuit settlement against former employer PF Chang's. He compulsively made shorts and abortive features, finally seeing one feature (Romeo's Distress, in 2016) to completion.
With Kevin Smith, a stated role model (Roger Corman's name is also respectfully dropped), Frumess sets goals higher with a sophomore feature, "Wash Away." But after a promising start, disasters mount: COVID lockdown/quarantine, the loss of his detested but vital nonprofit subsistence job, and the pregnancy of the lead actress compels Frumess to shelve "Wash Away."
In the spirit of "kuyashii" (a Japanese term that may be equated with achieving greater ambitions through failure), Frumess forges ahead through 2022 with Gouge Away, actually a sequel (?!) to the never-completed "Wash Away." It may be deliberate or just plain confused filmmaking, that we get little sense of what these movies are actually about - or if they are any good. Likely the points instead are the fierce creative drive, obsessions and sheer nerve that fuel the "chaos magic" of ramshackle DIY cinema.
How much one enjoys the results here amounts to a viewer referendum on Frumess. Dude is sometimes insightful, sometimes merely irritating as he narrates and vlogs with no onscreen off-switch. He deals with flat tires, a faulty laptop, money woes, garden pests, and a sad death rate among his elder actors (one was rock lyricist Dave Street, who missed his calling as a distinctive character actor). And the team works 23 hours straight to premiere Gouge Away at a microcinema festival in hipster destination Austin, Texas.
Frumess is a family man, but apart from a 90-year-old grandmother (who was up for foul-mouthed guest roles), we learn little of the household and his film frenzy's impact on it (a major point in American Movie).
The ideal audience are similar moviemaker-wannabes, though one suspects they would be too busy off somewhere shooting in borrowed cinderblock-basement sets, making their own no-budget cannibal zombie slash punk epics to have hours free to glean pearls of wisdom from this. Optional.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
Entertainment/filmmaking is the obvious choice, though it might also be of interest in the standup-comedy/humor corner.
What academic subjects would this film be suitable for?
Filmmaking courses might take an interest, though it's clear here these types disdain formal training in their, um, art.
What type of classroom would this resource be suitable for?
R-level swearing and simulated gore - plus the use of a grotesque sex toy as a prop - make this college-level and above.