More of this Feature • Part 2: More Hilarity, and the Fairy Godfather     Related Resources • Film Festivals • Independent Films    Elsewhere on the Web • New York Comedy Film Festival • Anthology Film Archives • We Married Margo • The Independent

by Marcy Dermansky

Last week, I had the good fortune of attending the third annual New York Comedy Film Festival. This four day event featured full length comic film premieres, shorts, animation, live comedy, live music and after-parties.

The films I saw were inventive and fresh: Stephen Kessler's loving tale of a B movie director The Independent starring Janeane Garofalo and Jerry Stiller; We Married Margo, the debut film by JD Shapiro based on the director's true story, and finally, Kristen Coury's first film Friends and Family, a comic story about a gay couple/mob enforcers that turns classic stereotypes upside down.

Before I write about the films, I have to mention the food. I believe this young festival has a great future. It boasts a fine array of corporate sponsors including food and drink providers. Few things in New York are free, and hanging out in the basement lounge at the Anthology Film Archives, an excited filmgoer said to me: "I sure came to the right place!" I felt the same way. As a further nice touch, before every film, a stand-up comic warmed up the crowd. I was already having a good time before the opening credits.

The Independent
Comedian Janeane Garofalo was the festival's big draw, co-starring in the festival's opening film The Independent. Garofalo plays straight man to Jerry Stiller' Morty Fineman, an independent filmmaker with 427 pictures (all of them proudly featuring tits, ass, and bombs) whose long career is coming to an inglorious end.

Garofalo, playing the independent director's levelheaded daughter, is strangely tan. She gets angry. She takes care of business, but the film belongs one hundred percent to Stiller. After an illustrious career in comedy, Jerry Stiller is probably best known as real life father of Ben, and television dad to George Costanza on Seinfeld. Stiller annoyed me no end on Seinfeld with his antics, but in The Independent, he is just right. Vain, selfish, full of himself, immodest, an artist who makes bad art -- and a bad artist is something you rarely get to see in films these days. Lots of people have vision; that doesn't mean they are any good.

What I liked best about The Independent were the clips of Fineman's campy films shown throughout. I loved the titles: Teenie Weenie Bikini Beach, Christ For the Defense, Cheerleader Camp Massacre, Bald Justice, Nuclear Nun, Heil Titler. I strongly recommend that you stay throughout the credits, where you'll be treated to all 427 titles. I also have a thing about Siamese Twins -- perhaps that's why I loved the clip from Brothers Divided. Siamese brothers, one head a hippie and one head patriotic, go to Vietnam.

Mockumentaries seem to be in style these days. The Independent takes a look at Fineman's illustrious career as he struggles to make his last feature, either a shoot-em-up euthanasia picture (Miss Kevorkian) or a musical about a serial killer. Cameo appearances from directors Ron Howard, Nick Cassavettes and the infamous B-film maker Roger Corman round out this charmer film. To tell the truth, it's a one joke film. Jerry Stiller as Morty Fineman keeps you laughing all the way through.

Next page > More Hilarity, and the Fairy Godfather > Page 2