Papa Vinyard here, now here's a little somethin' for ya...
Remember UNTITLED, that Adam Goldberg/Marley Shelton flick where Goldberg was an avant-garde artist obsessed with weird sounds? Imagine that, but in the middle of the woods, and with Goldberg wearing a huge, fake head on his shoulders the whole time.
In FRANK, Michael Fassbender plays an experimental musician who, with his band, conjures up sonic concoctions using animal calls, human screams, and even the noise of drug consumption, all while wearing a giant papier-mache mask. When he and his buddies get selected to play at SXSW, Frank's gotta pull his shit together so that when he's on stage, he comes off as more of a knowing Deadmau5 figure, rather than a confounding Shia LaBeouf type.
Scoot McNairy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Domhnall Gleeson are also on board, but the film feels more low-key than you'd expect with that cast. It doesn't seem to linger too much on the high comedy of Frank's giant head, and instead hints that his psychological troubles are more on the forefront of this plot than any fish-out-of-water nonsense.
I love movies about devoted weirdos making art, especially when one of them feels inclined to describe the expressions on his face because of the giant paper head covering them at all times. Fassbender is one of those actors with the range to kill it in a multitude of roles (no comment on 12 YEARS A SLAVE), and I'm excited to see him let loose and have fun with this role, even if we can't see his handsome-ass punim. The film (and his performance) have been getting strong reviews on the festival circuit, so this one may be worth keeping track of, even though it doesn't currenlty have a U.S. release date (though I'd expect that to change fairly soon).
What's the word? Does this seem funny, or overly quirked-out?
FRANK begins his composition in the U.K on May 9th; no word on when said music will make its way across the pond like The Beatles before it.
-Vincent Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
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