I’m not going to have time to review all of the short film program “Cheap Is Beautiful” at the 2000 New York Underground Film Festival, but I can at least describe the first film in the series Coleslaw Wrestling, which unfortunately is exactly what the title says it is. Bunch of well-endowed women pushing each other around in a giant vat of coleslaw at some biker event. It was directed by Hayley Downs.

Squat, directed by Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, was a cool animated bit from France detailing the squatter/rave scene over there. Cops bust up a house where punks drop Ecstasy, perform S&M and party all night. Nicely stylized drawings with a pulsating soundtrack. Kind of slight though, but entertaining.

David Schmoeller is a horror movie director who does a fairly decent Spalding Grey impersonation in Please Kill Mr. Kinski. Schmoeller directed the late, great actor Klaus Kinski in a minimum opus called Crawlspace back in the ’80s. During the filming of which Mr. Kinski started six fistfights with the crew and chastised the beleaguered director for using the words “Action” and “Cut.” Kinski’s behavior was so outrageous the film’s producer wanted to kill Klaus for the insurance money. It was a funny story until Schmoeller wussed out at the end and reminds everybody that despite Klaus’s assholish behavior he was a great actor.

I’m getting tired of writing, so I’m going to leave the last two films in this series for when I get home tonight. And if I’m so tired of writing, why am I writing this?

Goodbye.

Continue on to 2000 NYUFF: Day 7, Part 3: Short Films

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