GENTLEMEN BRONCOS

US, 2009, 85 minutes. Colour.
Michael Angarano, Jermaine Clement, Sam Rockwell, Jennifer Coolidge, Harry Feiffer, Hector Jimenez.
Directed by Jared Hess.

With his third film (with his writing partner and wife, Jerusah), Jared Hess has definitely developed a signature kind of film – which can be greeted as cult entertainment or dismissed as oddball. Napoleon Dynamite, his first, got a lot of the cult treatment. His second, Nacho Libre... well, hmm, um... His third, with the tantalising name of Gentlemen Broncos (whatever that actually does mean in the film itself), can either be irritatingly oddball or entertainingly oddball. Despite the sour faces around me, I opted for the latter.

Of course it is silly. So was Napoleon Dynamite – but Nacho Libre was more stupid than silly. Here we are in between!

The film gives the impression of having almost no budget and being made up as they went along. A young comic book nerd writes and draws his own comics. He goes to a conference and attends a workshop by a writer he idolizes who actually steals his plot, adapts it for his own book and has a great commercial success. In the meantime, a more than eccentric group make an appalling no budget film with our young writer trying to be an actor as well.

What is left is to expose the writer and achieve some success on one's own.

Actually, that sounds quite lame and, I suppose, it is. The amusement is in the antics, with Michael Angarano as the young writer (a bit similar to his role in The Man in the Chair), in disbelieving the dreadful home movie of the comic but relishing the wonderfully satiric performance of Jermaine Clement as the self-absorbed celebrity author. And a bonus is that Jennifer Coolidge plays the boy's mother.

1. The impact of the film? Different audiences? The young, the old? Readers of comics and graphic novels?

2. The director, his sense of humour, the sense of realism, the surreal? The presentation of family, dysfunctional? Conferences and their eccentricities? Science-fiction fans – and the poking fun? Film amateurs? Science fiction writers and their fans? The tone? The musical score?

3. The amateur acting – as a fruit of Ben’s imagination? Sam Rockwell as the hero? The cast? Costumes, sets, acting, spoof of science fiction, aliens, space, battles? Chevalier’s pink variation of Ben’s story? Donny’s film, the performances? The writer-director’s choice of having silly performances, amateur filming of the story?

4. Ben’s own story, his age, his dead father, his memory of him as heroic? His eccentric mother, her love, her fashions and their being out of style? Selling them for her, in the streets, the dresses and the popcorn? A morose young man? His writing his comic, love of comics, his imagination, knowledge? The visualising of his imagination – of an amateur teenager? Off to the conference, the spiel from the director, taking his manuscript, in the bus, the restaurant, the encounter with Tabitha, her getting forty dollars from him, the treats, with Donny? Generous but introspective?

5. The conference, the host, the range of fans, Ronald Chevalier and his appearance, his voice and tone, delivery? People admiring him, the interactions, the questions, Ben and his questions and not getting a satisfactory answer? The workshops and his disappointment?

6. Chevalier and his vanity, vocabulary, tone, his work, the jargon, his gestures, his own writer’s block, his reading the competitive manuscripts, coming across Yeast Wars, his own imagination, in pink? The decision to steal the story? His discussions with his publisher, almost losing his position? The publication, the books, the book-signing, his fans?

7. Ben and Tabitha and Donny, Tabitha and Donny and their personalities, their stories, making films, Tabitha and her romances, being in Belgium? Donny and his buying Yeast Wars, the cheque – and Ben going to the bank and its being valid for the following year? Ben persuaded to act in the love film – his unwillingness, the screening and his being sick? The adaptation of his own book, watching, the reaction? The humorous dialogue about films improving on the novels? Going home, his mother, out on the street selling?

8. Tabitha as an optimist, Donny and his eccentricities? Manner, directing the films? Acting in the films? The cross-dressing?

9. Ben’s mother and the encounter with Dusty, his being the angel guardian for Ben? His look, personality, eccentricities? His acting in the film? Taking over?

10. Ben and his confrontation of Chevalier, Chevalier and his speech about giving all the prizes to Ben? His escape?

11. The screening, dressing up for the screening? His being sick? The film as a failure?

12. Ben’s mother, his birthday, the box of books – and her having copyrighted them?

13. Ben and his winning over Chevalier, especially with the copyright? The books going off the shelf? Ben’s own book?

14. The blend of humour, send-up, satire, parody of science fiction?