Movie review and writer/director interview: Park

by John P. Meyer

Park serves up one of those refreshing movie-watching bills of fare that is entirely without pretense. It's a goofball comedy, plain and simple, with the premise that everything takes place in an off-the-beaten-track Los Angeles city park over the course of a weekday lunch hour. (A slightly extended lunch hour, perhaps - but with a run time of only 86 minutes, who among us can claim to have never spent that long at lunch? Not me.) Oh, and we're talking adult comedy, folks - what with the (brief) nudity and (simulated) sex and f-bombs and all.

Populated with an assortment of eccentric characters who have things on their minds other than sandwiches, the park in Park is a treeless, desolate-looking place with dirt roads and assorted turnouts whose primary attraction might be that no one you know is likely to run into you there. Imagine the possibilities. (Kurt Voelker has.)

He (Kurt) wrote and directed the movie, which opens in regular release here locally at the Inwood on Friday (Oct. 26); canny film buffs may recall that it made an earlier appearance in town during the AFI Dallas International Film Festival.

Here's a brief rundown on the diverse groups of people parked at the park in Park:

First up, we have a young woman named April (Dagney Kerr) who's driven her beat-up first-gen VW Beetle out to the middle of this godforsaken nowhere in order to... well, here's a clue: she's brought along a cup of boutique coffee, a bottle of vodka (as coffee enhancer) and a loaded revolver.

Then there's the dog-grooming team of socially-inept Ian (David Fenner) and exotic blond Krysta (Izabella Miko), one of whom has designs on the other and the other of whom has a different design in mind.

Enter SUV-piloting LA GQ poster chap Dennis (Billy Baldwin), who's already acquainted with one of the dog groomers but comes as an unpleasant surprise to the other.

A bit higher on the hillside parking area sit middle-ish aged gal pals Peggy (Ricki Lake) and Claire (Cheri Oteri) in their inconspicuous sedan; they have their binoculared eyes on one of the parkers mentioned previously - with evil intent.

Ensconced in their tech company utility van are four co-workers: the dreamy Fabio-coiffed Nathan (Trent Ford), his best bud Babar (Maulik Pancholy), shy brunette Sheryl (Melanie Lynskey) and the abrasive-yet-sexy Meredith (Anne Dudek). The girls have consented to join the guys for a picnic lunch because they think they know something special about the two chums. (And then there are the smoldering internalized motives...)

These constitute the major Park players, with the ensemble narrative shifting from one group to another as various of them interact with various others in both expected and unexpected (but typically hilarious) ways. Music selections and dialog cutaways provide for entertaining segues, but what carries the piece are zinger bon mots which come one after the other; as usual, I've included a selection at the end of the review and - as you'll discover when you see the film - it was difficult paring the selection down to only these few.

Kurt dropped by Pegasus News World Headquarters on Thursday (Oct. 25) to answer a few questions about the movie, his formative years in Dallas and his filmmaking future. More importantly, he reminded us that Park deals with critical issues such as suicide, nudism, sex inside of vehicles and experimentation with gender orientation; he talked about what happened when armed park service guards caught his gaffer peeing in the bushes; and finally, he threw down the gauntlet by offering to buy the beverage of choice for any person who can honestly say they didn't laugh out loud while watching the movie . (The Inwood has a bar, as you'll recall... so the possibility of instant gratification exists - if you're a damn liar.)

AND SOMEONE CAN'T WAIT TO ADMINISTER IT: "I think someone's ready for the glove of love." - Krysta

IS THAT A GOOD THING?: "He's like some new age Johnny Appleweed." - Babar

TRUE CONFESSIONS: "The truth is, I actually believe most of the crap that I say." - Nathan

PET GROOMER 101: "Mental domination is the key... except with cats."

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