(A Maverick Platinum Film) Suggested Retail
Price:$16.95
A Tweek City LLC presentation in
association with Traveller Film. Produced by Eric G. Johnson, Caitlin Maynard,
Yule Caise. Directed, written by Eric G. Johnson.
With: Giuseppe Andrews, Elizabeth Bogush, Keith Brunsmann, Eva Fisher,
Demetrius Navarro. (English, Spanish dialogue)
When I first saw "Tweek
City ," I was
astounded by its messy and seamless,
artless style. It was so cool!
It immediately reminded me of the Sixties teen satire, "Lord Love A Duck," by
George Axelrod, the screenwriter for "Breakfast At Tiffany's" and "The
Manchurian Candidate."
But Eric G. Johnson
and cinematographer Barry Stone had something heavier in mind, so the
comparison stops here.
"Tweek City" takes a wild ride in the life of Bill, a supposedly bisexual
'speed' dealer in SF who visits both poles of a personality disorder over
several days.
He is
beset by demons--memories of his mother's suicide,mostly, but possibly his guilt
over his repressed homosexuality that flares up in one tremendous scene with a
Latina drag queen in the Mission District of SF.
Perhaps
that is why he is so attached to metaphetamine. The hallucinations of the drug
mix in with the action of his day-to-day life. It is hard to tell one from the
other. That's one reason why this movie is so nitty-gritty and why it hits hard.
Bill,
as antihero, played brilliantly by Guiseppe Andrews, recalled to me the Terence
Stamp role in Pier Paulo Pasolini's cinematic deduction, "Teorema," even though
that movie's cockeyed, almost story-less plot makes Tweek City look like "The
Godfather" by comparison. Substitute Guiseppe Andrews for Terence Stamp. The
dreamy and ridiculous situations. The sparse dialogue and you've got it--another
New Wave classic, about forty years later.
Bill
relations with the opposite sex are quite weird. That's where the repressed
homosexuality comes in perhaps. But BIll finds it difficult to love, even
himself. Fear and guilt haunt him, and the drugs only increase the distortion in
his perception. There is a scene with a young woman that involves shit, and
another running sub story line about an ex-girlfriend who poses for a 'skin'
magazine.
It was
unclear to me whether this was actually a committed relationship or one in which
Jerm was exaggerating as a joke.
Jerm
apparently is Bill's only friend. He opens up to him emotionally but they are
not in a physical relationship. I don't think Bill is homosexual because in a
situation of intimacy with another guy he doesn't show any erotic tendencies.
The drag queen is another story.
Tragedy
is a constant companion for Bill.
At a
punk rock show, where Ginger Coyote and her band the White Trash
Debutantes perform, Jerm takes a stage dive and becomes injured, then left for
dead.
Bill's
struggles with Germ's injury and escapes from San Francisco to Los Angeles where
he visits his high school girl friend's Sharon's wedding, and threatens her with
a weapon.
The ending is where it really get
poetic. Without spoiling it for the viewer, I can liken it to elements of
"Babel," Alejandro González Iñárritu's recent masterpiece, especially the scenes
in the desert near San Diego.
Eric Johnson and cinematographer Barry
Stone are to be commended for using a soft tone to the visualizations of this
troubling story line. In the hands of less gentle souls, this film could have
turned into an incredible downer.
Eric Johnson is no tyro when it comes to
film direction. In 1990 Eric received his Bachelor of Arts degree in theater and
film from
the University of California at Santa Cruz. At the university he concentrated on
eight films and also wrote and directed several plays.
He also has lived in San Francisco and currently, Los Angeles. In the Bay Area,
he worked as a stage manager and equipment coordinator for CineRent, and worked
on countless productions, including music video and commercials shoots.
Johnson was a gaffer on Rob Nilsson's Chalk, and accepted the precepts
of Nilsson's Direct Action Cinema - a film direction methodology that stresses
improvisation.
In 2001, Eric joined Group 101 Films
(
www.group101films.com).,a
major producer of short
films , and did six films in six months; and one them them, "Tiny Tortures,"
screened at the Short Order Film Fest in 2002
As a writer he has credits for the features Soul Patrol (Film Roman
Films) and Finders Keepers (T-Bone Films).
For a
few years he was a head writer at Sony Online Entertainment and supervised the
writing for JEOPARDY! (online), wrote for All Access: Totally
Tricked Out Rides (VH1 -- 2003). Eric also wrote and directed for a CD ROM,
Garage Band, a comic look at the music business.
Johnson has also been active on the stage, although a little more obscurely than
on film, directing Don't Get Smart With Me Missy, featuring Fred Willard;
and Pothead Porn Dwarfs.
In other words, as a creative artist in a
fairly new career, "he's been there, done that;" and what can we look for next
from him but something totally exciting and unexpected.
