Themes: Future Dystopias, Lone Wolves, Space Travel
Main Cast: Rocco Sisto, Annie Golden
Release Year: 2001
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
Eraserhead meets Buck Rogers by way of an MGM musical in this bizarre outer-space saga about Samuel Curtis (Cory McAbee), a galactic truck driver looking to make a killing. The film opens with Curtis landing on the freewheeling, all-male asteroid of Ceres. Before winning a dance contest with his buddy Blueberry Pirate -- who is renowned for smuggling fresh fruit -- Curtis learns from Blueberry about a scheme to give a fetal "real live girl" to the similarly male-dominated planet of Jupiter in exchange for a strapping adolescent known solely as "The Boy Who Actually Saw a Female Breast." He in turn will be sent to the all-female planet of Venus where he will spend his life servicing the planet's occupants. Unfortunately, Curtis is followed by the mysterious self-proclaimed birthday boy Professor Hess, who has a tendency to vaporize any and all who come into contact with him. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival as a part of the Midnight Madness program. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Cast
Rocco Sisto - Prof. Hess
Annie Golden - Cloris
Joshua Taylor - Blueberry Pirate; Tom Aldredge - Old Man; Peter McRobbie - Lee Vilensky; Bill Buell - Eddie; Gregory Cook - The Boy...; Cory McAbee - Samuel Curtis; James Ransone - Bodysuit; Mark Manley - Henchman #1 (Hey Boy!); Ned Sublette - Henchman #2 (Hey Boy!)
Credit
Ann Goulder - Casting, Michael Krantz - Co-producer, Dawn Weisberg - Costume Designer, Cory McAbee - Director, Pete Beaudreau - Editor, Geoff Tuttle - Production Designer, W. Mott Hupfel III - Cinematographer, Joshua Taylor - Producer, William "Pinetop" Perkins - Producer, Bobby Lurie - Producer, Doug McKean - Sound/Sound Designer, Cory McAbee - Screenwriter
The film is set in a fictitious past, in which space travel is pioneered by roughnecks. The logic of space travel isn't addressed, and most technology was designed for the film to appear as if "it could be repaired with a hammer". Samuel Curtis, an interplanetary trader, is approached by an acquaintance of his, the Blueberry Pirate, with a mission. He is to provide the women of Venus with a new king for mating. In exchange for this new stud, they will relinquish their currently deceased king, whose family is offering an immense reward for his body. Curtis sets off in search for the perfect replacement, the Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman's Breast, but is unaware of the fact that his old nemesis, Professor Hess is hot on his trail.
The entire film was shot on 35mm black & white negative film for an ambiguous budget of "between 1 and 2 million". The unusual use of paintings for special effects shots was mostly for budget reasons. However, the director felt that neither CGI nor miniatures looked convincing. Therefore, they decided to hand paint the special effects shots to create a look unique to the film. Many props and sets were donated or bought with thrift store materials and modified to fit the film's needs. The offline edit was done on an Avid system and the camera negatives were cut to match the video edit and followed a traditional optical post-production. The entire film has overtones of isolation and segregation especially between men and women and has a stark sense of avant-comedy in the vein of Guy Maddin or William Klein films.
