“GARBANZO GAS” (2007)

Starring: Miles Dougal, Walt Dongo, Vietnam Ron, Tyree & Tiffany Naylor
Written & Directed by Giuseppe Andrews
GiuseppeAndrews.net

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

There’s a hilarious scene in Chris Smith’s 1999 documentary “American Movie” that any no-budget filmmaker that’s ever cast non-acting neighbors and family members in a project can relate to. Mark Borchardt attempts to record audio of his uncle Bill reciting the line: “It’s all right. It’s okay. There’s something to live for. Jesus told me so.” After listening to his uncle butcher the four lines more than 30 times, Borchardt decides something among the recordings he’s just made has to be usable.

What Borchardt failed to see, and the same can be said for most moviemakers, is the beauty in each and every piece of the poorly performed and highly mutilated bits of dialogue. Underground filmmaker Giuseppe Andrews, on the other hand, reviles in such bad acting. He even builds whole movies around it. His surreal film “Garbanzo Gas,” which saw its world premiere at CineVegas and was my favorite film that played the 2007 festival, is a perfect example.

It’s not that all the acting in the laugh riot is bad. Miles Dougal, who also stars in Adam Rifkin’s excellent movie “LOOK” with Andrews, is pretty damn good. He works as part of the glue that holds the weird world of “Garbanzo Gas” together. Dougal has star power and charisma written all over him. He’s even reminiscent of a young Jack Nicholson crossed with Benicio Del Toro and George Clooney.

But Dougal aside, the rest of the cast is downright awful. If these actors were in any other film they would completely take you out of the story. But “Garbazno Gas,” produced by Rifkin, isn’t just some other movie. This is a bizarre cinematic experience that’s actually not at all like anything I’ve ever seen. The bad acting is part of the film’s splendor, quite like the works of John Waters or Herschell Gordon Lewis. The big difference here is Andrews’ cast members feel more organic like Borchardt’s uncle Bill and their bad acting is what is exploited, not the individuals themselves.

The big three “baddies” in “Garbanzo Gas” would be Andrews’ veterans Vietnam Ron, Walt Dongo and Tyree. Both Ron and Dongo seem like they’re straight out of a “Bumfights” video, but Andrews doesn’t treat his troupe in the violent way Indecline does its stars. Tyree reminds me of the crazy old man who lives down the street from just about everybody. He’s that deranged grandpa figure that gets mad when others use profanity in front of him, but spews worse language himself.

That description of these three actors doesn’t seem to be too far off as Andrews cast most of the film’s roles with his neighbors from the Ventura, Calif. trailer park he lives in. In fact, the trailer park is where most of Tyree’s key scenes were shot. The rest of the film pretty much takes place in a motel room next door.

Dougal and Dongo, both wearing bad wigs, play guys that are down-on-their-luck and not quite the smartest individuals you’d ever meet. They recently scored part of an unsuspecting woman’s social security check so they could stay the night at the motel to watch a kangaroo fight on television. The duo ended up arguing all night and missing the fight. Check out time is now approaching. With only a gun and no money to their names, the duo is unable to buy the steaks and fully-loaded baked potatoes they currently desire. They make a pact to commit suicide when the motel’s digital clock strikes noon. Till then they dance their troubles away listening to the radio. Unbeknownst to them, a cow has checked into the room next door. The local slaughterhouse has given a reprieve and fully paid vacation to a lucky talking cow. His name is Cow and he’s played by Vietnam Ron in a cheap Halloween costume.

This wacky scenario sets the stage for Andrews’ strange work of art. As if that wasn’t enough, we are introduced to even more off-the-wall characters as the story unfolds. A murderous homeless man, who is instructed to kill by bath towels, enters the picture at least 30 minutes in. He is picked up from off the side of the road by a woman. They go to her place and have sex. Hungry for a steak, the psycho heads to the motel to kill Cow. Even later, a senior citizen serial killer, played by Tyree, that gets his instructions from an orthopedic shoe gets thrown into the mix. He reads in the paper about Cow’s fortune and exclaims, “Holy shit! There’s a cow in a motel.” He too heads off for the kill.

Despite some of the complete absurdness, Andrews somehow not only keeps you completely lost within his film, he has you laughing at it and with it. I was completely glued to the screen and haven’t laughed this much at a movie in a very long time. When it was over, I wanted more of Dougal, Dongo, Ron and Tyree. So much so, I felt like packing my bags and moving into the trailer park.

But what was really cool about the movie was when it was over, it wasn’t just some stupid comedy or whacked out shockfest. In the end, the handheld-shot “Garbanzo Gas” is a cohesive story that delivers some brilliant social commentary on animal abuse, the eating of beef and the questioning of the whole “well, that’s the way it’s always been” mentality.

Silly things are introduced early in the film that seem simply sophomoric at first, but make more sense to us later. There’s Dougal’s singing of a filthy “Why did the chicken cross the road?” song about the chicken visiting a whorehouse and blowing his load. There are also references to the “beans, beans, a magical fruit” rhyme. The film, which was shot, scored and edited by Andrews, then closes with a great scene of Cow asking a worker from the slaughterhouse why people have to eat beef. He is told once people do things for so long and get in a comfortable routine, you can’t break up that routine. Steak goes with fully loaded baked potatoes, and bacon and eggs are good for breakfast. That’s just how it’s been for many years and that’s just how it will remain. Andrews, who sadly only appears briefly in the film as a jogger and the man behind the camera in a few reflections in mirrors, then goes back to the “chicken” and “beans” reference from the film’s opener. It’s at that point we as individuals start to question ourselves.

Perhaps Andrews, a vegetarian himself, wants us to question the intention of the chicken, cow or any other animal and their individual rights as a living and breathing creature and how we as humans infringe on those rights and intentions. Or perhaps it is meant in a more figurative way of always questioning everything around us. Had Andrews himself never questioned the world of cinema and experimented in the way he has here, “Garbanzo Gas” would have never come into fruition. That truly would have been a pity because, simply put, “Garbanzo Gas” is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

- CCF, June 2007