Edgy Mama

Here’s the description of Anywhere, USA, from the Sundance Film Festival website:

“At 2:00 p.m. every Tuesday, Tammy beats Gene with a tennis racquet. It’s his penance. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about the pistachio nut. Meanwhile, Pearl is having doubts. An orphaned eight-year-old in the care of her uncle, she has unwittingly eaten pot brownies and begins to suspect that the tooth fairy isn’t real. Finally, there’s Ralph, a man of privilege who, somewhere between bites 23 and 27 of his steak, comes to a startling revelation: he doesn’t know any black people. Don’t be alarmed. It’s just another day in Anywhere, USA.

Told in three parts (”Penance,” “Loss,” and “Ignorance”), Chusy Haney-Jardine’s wildly original snapshot of du jour America is such an audacious, personal expression of vision that you occasionally feel as if it’s being projected directly from his brain. Haney-Jardine delights in theatricality, burlesque images, and wonderfully mismatched devices (rednecks frolicking as Puccini blares or an entire story line narrated by two women gossiping at a tanning salon). And for all its humor, the film observes life with tenderness and humanity, finding an emotional center in Pearl and her uncle.

Here’s a film that takes real risks and reaps the rewards ten-fold. Shot in Haney-Jardine’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, edited in his garage, and featuring an almost entirely non-professional cast (his daughter, Perla, is the sole exception), Anywhere, USA, wears its independence like a battering ram that gently knocks at your door.”

That’s more information in one place about the film than I’ve seen about anywhere else. The film is being screened at least five times at the festival, and let’s hope it gets major kudos and is picked up by a distributor. Chusy and Jennifer deserve it. They’re putting up a daily blog with film clips from the festival here. Now that the movie’s website’s been updated, it rocks!

I cannot WAIT until the film is screened here. I’m still assuming I’m in the film, as it would be difficult to cut me out of Ralph’s pivotal scene where he finally meets a black guy.

I actually had a wacky plan to try to go to Sundance, but it was dependent on a number of factors that didn’t come together, including having a free place to stay at a nearby ski resort. As this will probably be the only time that my face graces the big screen at Sundance, I’m bummed I couldn’t get out there. But I’m still psyched about the whole huzzah! Go Anywhere, USA!