Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Hanging with the stars- Plastic Tacos premieres at the Main Art

Plastic Tacos is a fun little film. It’s a light-hearted “mocumentary” about disc golfers, and a little more.

The film essentially follows three characters as they walk through two days of disc golfing, preparing and attempting to qualify for a tournament. The film is really not about the sport; so much as it’s a character study of three people.

Most likely to avoid unnecessary exposition, each character is a bit of a stereotype. Chadken is a spoiled rich brat that you immediately learn to simultaneously hate and pity, Rene is a slightly wild, mildly trashy single mom who is trying to clean up her act, and Border is, well Border is just a drunken freak who defies description.

All of the performances were excellent, and the editing was very well done. Some of the shots, lighting and sound may have been a little rough, but no worse than many other documentaries I’ve seen, and in fact much better than many documentaries I’ve seen that had large budgets.

The lovely Ms. Erika Schultz, who portrays Rene, either pointing out that her face is on the poster, or picking her nose, at the premiere of Plastic Tacos.

As far as the film as a whole goes, it was fun, silly and light-hearted. Rene was the redeeming factor of the film (and I am not saying this just because she was played by a friend of mine). Her character was the one that elevated the film above being a simple comedy.

Her performance added an element that you could sympathize with, even as you laughed at her. She was a real person, someone who was a bit sad, and someone who was trying to move up and on. While Chadken was happy with his parents’ money, and Border was simply clueless for the most part, Rene was a character who was obviously at a point in her life where she realized she wanted more, but was unsure of what to do about it. It was a good choice by the filmmakers to portray her in this way, and the end result left you caring about, and possibly relating with, her character.

After the film, we ran outside to get a photo of Erika in front of the marquee, but due to the one-night only showing of the film, and the fact that somebody who worked at the theater was apparently trying to get out of work, it was already down. Instead, I present you with Erika, pointing out the letters that once spelled Plastic Tacos on the marquee. Ah, art can be so fleeting…

2 comments:

Dita said...

I love the title "Plastic Tacos"

...and yes, art can go as quickly as it came (although a professor once stated that he had a party celebrating Chagalls death as it had just gone on too long...a pitiful thought)

stray_thoughts said...

When is the private viewing with the star?