WWFF Judge Jon Niccum on the Summer 2007 entries
Jon Niccum is the entertainment editor of the Lawrence Journal World and the President of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle. We asked him to send us his thoughts about last night’s showing.
Steve Martin famously recorded an album titled “Comedy is Not Pretty.”
That motto applied to the hurry-up onslaught of down-and-dirty humor that characterized this particular installment of the Wild West Film Fest.
WWFF 5 asked contestants to create a comedy within the 48-hour time crunch. Competitors were instructed to include three of the following criteria: a mustache, a foreign accent, bike shorts, a corndog and/or utilize a provided photo of a toothy man who looked like Gene Hackman’s incarcerated cousin.
The most consistently amusing aspect of the screenings were how this criteria factored into the productions. These ranged from the mundane (a character walks in while eating a corndog; the toothy dude’s photo is framed on the wall in the background) to entire plotlines based on one (i.e. “Mafioso,” which centered on a Godfather-type corndog putting hits on other grocery items). My favorite use was one film where the photo popped up after the credits rolled with a caption and fake name explaining how the film was dedicated to this man. Cheap but effective.
As the dozens of screenings progressed, two themes emerged that warned me to be wary of a project.
1. The filmmakers relied on guns.
2. The filmmakers relied on “Star Wars.”
First of all, it’s hard to make guns funny. One of the few rules of improv comedy is “no guns onstage.”
As for the “Star Wars” stuff, it’s a pure sign of desperation at the screenwriting level if your initial instinct is to mimic George Lucas — a guy known to everyone in the industry as a notoriously awful writer.
Thus, when “Life After Lucas” centered on former galactic bounty hunter Boba Fett working a desk job in Wichita — and carrying around a gun — it was a lose-lose situation.
(This was especially amusing considering fellow judge Tom Kane makes a healthy living voicing many of the “Star Wars” characters in cartoons and video games. His frequent cringing was palpable.)
In comparison to the prior horror-themed Wild West, I thought the overall filmmaking quality was down. However, there were far more laughs generated at this fest than there were scares at the previous one. Entries such as “The New Adventures of Teddy and Lon,” “Superdudes,” “Ice Noggle Super Elite” and “Wild West Corndogs” all featured genuine laugh-out-loud moments.
Even when comedy isn’t pretty, it can still be quite funny.
– Jon Niccum
“What a great opportunity for young filmmakers to show their craft for good causes. Everybody wins!”
“The Wild West Film Fest has been bringing it to the Lawrence film scene. It is one of the best examples of what filmmakers are looking for in a festival.”
“The Wild West Film Fest puts filmmaking back into the hands of the people. It’s indy film in it’s purest, grittiest form. A great opportunity for local filmmakers to get their work seen by audiences.”
geez- Simon Cowel! They aren’t professional productions. I happen to think guns are funny!
Not so fast Jon. As you say, Wild West Corn Dogs had “genuine laugh out loud moments”… but the “Corn Dog” was waving around pistols. Guns can be funny if they are held by a corn dog. ; )