Every day Robert Saucedo shines a spotlight on a movie either so bad it’s good or just downright terrible. Today: Imagine if Wilco did Beetlejuice.
When I first saw All My Friends are Funeral Singers at South by Southwest, I was blown away by the experience. Walking away from the theater, I was a little curious if my extreme enjoyment of the film came from the fact that it was a genuinely great movie or the fact that I had seen the film with a live soundtrack courtesy of Califone, the masterminds behind the film.
After watching the film from the comfort of my home — sans live performance by Califone — I’m a little disappointed to find that All My Friends Are Funeral Singers doesn’t quite live up to memories of my initial encounter with the film.
Written and directed by Califone band member Tim Rutili, All My Friends are Funeral Singers is still an engaging little movie with a pretty top-notch cast headlined by Angela Bettis.
Bettis stars as Zel, a fortune-teller who uses the house full of ghosts that have been passed down to her by her dead grandmother to make a living pretending to tell the future.
In reality, Zel is fed information from her dead pals, the aforementioned funeral singers. The ghosts that live in Zel’s house are not just her partners in crime; they are, for the most part, her friends and even family.
Taken from all walks of life, the ghosts run the spectrum of supernatural hanger-oners.
There’s the former man of the cloth who, in his afterlife, has taken to shacking up with a bride who hung herself with her something borrowed. There’s a creepy little girl who, though mute, manages to radiate expression through her wide, aged-beyond-her-years eyes. And, of course, there’s Califone themselves, playing a gaggle of blind ghost musicians who offer the film a folksy, mostly instrumental, soundtrack using a wide assortment of found objects and musical appropriations.
The film trades very much in the quiet moments between characters. As Zel’s houseguests begin to grow weary of being trapped against their will, they slowly loose their cool and start demanding their freedom. Faced with loosing not only her source of income but also her closest friends, Zel is torn between doing the right thing and being left alone in her creaky old house.
Shot through a variety of lenses and shutter speeds, All My Friends are Funeral Singers has the look of a music video for an indie band — albeit an impressive one. Combined with the film’s top-notch acting and engaging soundtrack, the film’s unique visual style helps distinguish All My Friends Are Funeral Singers as a cut above the standard indie band ego project that eventually finds its way to the shelves of your local used DVD store.
While a DVD viewing of All My Friends are Funeral Singers may have suffered in comparison against watching the film while Califone performed the soundtrack live, I can’t help but remain sure that the film is something worth checking out.
I do wish the DVD’s sound-mix was a tad more impressive. I was missing that throbbing soundtrack I had grown used to while playing the film’s soundtrack over my car speakers in the months since watching the film at SXSW.
If a quiet version of Beetlejuice with folk rock sensibilities sounds like it may be your cup of tea, I can’t recommend All My Friends are Funeral Singers enough.
You may, however, want to look into kidnapping the band to perform the soundtrack live from the hole you have in your basement. When they finish, you can talk about them putting the lotion on the skin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blonBKwR3oM
Robert Saucedo also only has ghosts for friends. He trapped them by laying a trail of Boo Berry cereal. Follow Robert on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.
