Mud stars Matthew McConaughey

If you didn’t make it to Park City this year, don’t despair. Several of the coolest projects I had the pleasure to view are coming to you anyway. Viewed as a part of the cutting edge New Frontier category, Quentin Dupieux’s Wrong Cops was a hilarious, as yet unfinished, episodic film in progress. The three “chapter” installment of this dark comic tale of cops gone “wrong” in a Los Angeles without crime, was brilliantly subversive and cast. Without criminals to arrest or cases to solve, Mark Burnham’s Duke is a cop who fills his time with selling drugs stuffed inside dead rats and harassing an innocent teen played by Marilyn Manson. In the zany Q and A, Mr. Dupieux explained that the film was shot as fifteen minute installments to create a platform for immediate release online before the film was completely finished. It will be edited together in the end, and likely top out at six installments, but right now you can check out the high powered lunacy of the first installment here. Comic surrealist Duprieux is also known at Mr. Oizo, a prominent and skilled musician whose sound was used in the score of this wild and witty ride.

Coming soon to a theater near you – April 26th, to be exact, writer/director Jeff Nichols’ Sundance Film, Mud is a must-see film. Nichols’ previous film, Take Shelter was also a Sundance favorite, but it’s apocalyptic vision didn’t spread to mainstream audiences.

This time, Nichols has a major wattage star, Matthew McConaughey, in a more traditional tale that combines coming of age trope with adventure, a Southern river front setting that’s unique, taut action, and an even tauter love story.

The film introduces two Arkansas boys who live along the banks of the Mississippi,  Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Eric Lofland). Discovering an island with a boat stuck in a tree, they also discover Mud (McConaughey), a drifter with stories of magic, true love, murder, and more. This mythical story and a gritty sense of action both infuse the film, and make it riveting; it’s fresh, compelling, and a real movie-movie.

Enjoy these works. Treasure them. Just go watch them!