+ Strangest Movie of the Year
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| The creepy, stylish poster for Kevin Smith's Tusk |
Great writer-director Kevin Smith's (Red State (2011)) new film is based on one of his 'SModcast' podcasts, where his following encouraged an idea developed on the air to be developed into a feature film:
A douchy podcaster (Justin Long (Die Hard 4.0 (2007))) goes to Canada to interview a new viral phenomenon, who commits suicide before he gets to him. Instead, he finds an exotic old hermit, whose life's tales he thinks will provide a great replacement. The only problem is ... this hermit's got a secret ... wish to ... SPOILER make strangers into ... - a walrus!
This truly dark and weird plot, no doubt formed by writer-director Smith in some measure due to his self-admittedly weed-addled brain, mixes dark satirical comedy with body horror and (in the second half) farce!
The concept is to confront a representative of dumb, vulgar, unsophisticated 'modern man' with a classically schooled misanthrope, who turns out to be what you might term a proactive ditto. Michael Parks (Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)) lights up the part of the eloquent madman just as he did with a different, but also nutjob character in the great Red State. Parks makes Tusk work, and the oppositional energy between the two leads works, (even if Long's character comes off as surprisingly well-read, picking up many of Parks' elusive literary references while still obviously being a complete boob.) - Smith originally wanted master filmmaker/actor Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained (2012)) for the part, but, luckily I think, he had no interest in acting at the time.
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| Justin Long finds himself in the darnedest 'pickle' in Kevin Smith's Tusk |
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| Michael Parks is not quite the host he had imagined, in Kevin Smith's Tusk |
As pod-casting partner/'friend', we get Haley Joel Osment (A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)), who has recently made something of a comeback in the public awareness in more or less farcical comedies as The Spoils of Babylon (2014, TV-miniseries), Alpha House (2013-14), Sex Ed (2014) and now Tusk. Genesis Rodriguez (The Last Stand (2013)) acts well and looks very well as the young woman between them.
- And then there's the surprise major star appearance of Johnny Depp (The Rum Diary (2011)), which people who see Tusk are inevitably talking about after: - Was it really Depp? (It was.) He is disguised under a heavy hair, prosthetics, costume and make-up job here as a Quebecian detective, and he is a ton of fun in Tusk, injecting some juice into what could otherwise have been a fairly thin second half of the film. Indeed the poking fun at Canada/Canadians and America/Americans are a big chunk of the comedic side of Tusk, and, to me, it was quite funny.
A trivia note is that the teenage daughters of both Smith and Depp act in minor parts in Tusk, as the store clerks who (deservedly) dis Long. (Strangely fitting, in a way, since Smith's own career was boosted from his writing, directing and acting in Clerks (1994), about a couple of store clerks.)
Tusk is a fun film, perhaps for the few. - It certainly doesn't deserve the harsh words it has gotten from many critics and unprepared audiences. It makes a dark horror comedy out of material that is inevitably linked to Tom Six's truly off-putting The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009), and does so successfully.
Related posts:
Kevin Smith: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cop Out (2010) or, A Couple of Dicks
Watch the wacky trailer for the film here
Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 1.8 mil. $ (US only)
= Huge flop
[Tusk opened #14 at the US box office in November '14 on 602 screens. Reviews of the film differ wildly. Smith has conceived the film as the first in a trilogy called True North, (riffing, perhaps, on 2014's successful detective TV-series True Detective.) It is set to be followed up with Yoga Hosers (2015), an action-adventure starring the two daugthers, Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith. The trilogy will end in a film called Moose Jaws, which Smith says will be "Jaws with a moose." - I'll be ready for that, but let's see if it happens first ...]
What do you think of Tusk?
Do you want to see the two next films in the proposed True North trilogy, if and when they get released?
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