by John P. Meyer

Can you say, "mumblecore"? (Can you at least mumble it?)

I dropped into the Angelika Dallas last night (Aug. 1) to take in the "Mini-Slack-a-Vettes" show because an acquaintance, Frank Mosley, had a film scheduled to screen as part of the compilation. (I was also there to get a feel for the festival vibe and to find out how attendance was going.)

Sure enough, when I climbed the stairs to the theater lobby, there stood Frank, talking on his cell phone (swinging a big distribution deal, I trust) and nodding in my direction. I shook his (non-phone) hand and ambled on over towards auditorium three, where the collection of four "mumblecore" shorts was about to begin.

[Well, at least that's what the schedule indicated: as it turned out, a previous program - Frank Ross' HoHoKam - was still playing when the 8:30 start time rolled around, but in typical Dallas Video Fest laissez-faire fashion (and this pretty much defined the vibe I was seeking to discover during my visit), folks waiting for slack-a-vettes just ambled on into the theater during the final few minutes of HoHoKam and took their seats. Quite a contrast to the way things were handled during the recent film fests (AFI and USA) - and I'm not making a value judgment here, because - frankly - it was refreshing to find an absence of anyone guarding the doors and checking for cell phones (or guns, or bombs, or liquid-filled containers).]

Four films played back-to-back during the program, beginning with David Lowery's The Outlaw Son, a mysterious little visual narrative devoid of dialogue until its final moments, when a satisfying payoff occurs. It's a narrative told in glances and gestures played out in front of atmospheric urban backdrops.

Following was Frank's emotional short film, Leave, shot in Arlington over the course of a single day. Leave is roughly cut and haphazardly-focused as befits its improvisational style, employing hyper-closeups of characters' expressions as they confront their gut-level feelings for each other and come to terms with realities which - in some cases - they'd prefer to ignore.

Intervention, a sly little film by Jay and Mark Duplass, evokes laughter and pathos in equal measure as friends of the protagonist goad him into revealing a series of increasingly more uncomfortable truths about himself: his lie involving a meeting with Bill Parcels turns out to be the least of it.

The program concluded with the most amusing film of the group, Austinite Bryan Poyser's Grammy's. In this action/adventure/mystery/comedic short, a couple of slacker dudes (who happen to be brothers) carry out an ill-fated fishing expedition onto private property and encounter the opportunistic grandson of the land owner, who discovers in the brothers just the dupes he's been searching for. Or so he thinks.

Oh, and as to attendance: while the theater wasn't full to capacity, there were plenty of folks on hand to enjoy the show.

The Video Fest moves operations to the Dallas Theater Center beginning tonight (Aug. 2), where screenings will continue through Sunday.

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