The kids are back on campus and the hot weather is unrelenting. We suggest you escape both in the cool, dark Boedecker Theater at Dairy Arts Center for another month of off-the-wall flicks as part of the nonprofit arts center's Friday Night Weird series.
The Dairy’s Mimesis Documentary Festival (Aug. 11-16) is stripping this month’s series of a week. But there’s still plenty of freaky, fun and frankly odd films to get you through the month.
Resident “Queen of the Weird” Shay Wescott helps us run down what’s at the Boe this August.
The directorial debut from actor-comedian John Early also sees him starring as the titular character, an earnest drag performance presented without winks or nudges to the audience. Maddie is a cisgender woman who, despite working for content creators, never seeks the spotlight. Fame finds her after her boyfriend (Eric Rahill) posts a video of Maddie’s cooking, thrusting the unrelenting optimist onto a career path all but guaranteed to collide head-on with her dormant bulimia.
With a strong supporting cast — Kate Berlant, Vanessa Bayer and Kristen Johnston sparkle — the tribute to cheesy TV movies skewers influencer culture while managing not to impale any of its characters. Early’s deep reverence for the humans at the center of his film allows him to blend camp and heavy trauma: the softness of the world he’s created allows him to take a hard, critical look at body image and eating disorders while never making the disease or its victims the butt of the joke. Whatever other lessons he absorbed from his minister father, it’s clear the Golden Rule left an impression on Early: Love thy neighbor.
“It’s that sincerity — especially directed towards something as questionable as the melodramatic, borderline exploitative Lifetime movie — that makes Maddie’s Secret such a delightful oddity,” Wescott says. “Particularly as his directorial debut, it’s such a swing, such a high wire act of tonal peculiarity, and in the hands of someone else, could be such a cynical disaster.”
After being subjected to a “healing” ritual by their religious community, two teenage boys (Joe Bird as Naim and Stacy Clausen as Ryan) are haunted by an entity that takes the form of what they most desire — each other.
This shapeshifting demon, set against the backdrop of community persecution, creates a tension that goes beyond your typical stalked-by-a-denison-of-the-underworld story. Each interaction between the two young lovers carries a new level of uncertainty: Should I be anxious because they might get caught by a prying church member, or because one of them is about to get strangled by a supernatural force?
The LGBTQ+ coming-of-age romance and the horror are both fully developed in Leviticus, strengthening the film overall.
“What makes Leviticus work is that it treats the romance just as seriously as the horror — allowing real character development and intimacy and using widescreen filmmaking techniques that subtly nod to classic horror movies while also lending a gravitas to the cinematic experience that isn’t always as present in modern genre films,” Wescott says.
The religious aspects add a sense of timelessness to Leviticus that enhance its universality.
“Whether you are queer teen or a person of any identity, we are always trying to rectify our oldest stories, beliefs, and anxieties with the modern world,” she continues. “The best horror finds a way to literalize not just our external fears, but the fears that are internal: parts of ourselves we reject or don’t understand, or in the case of Leviticus, have learned to be ashamed of. That’s what makes this both such a compelling drama, and genuinely scary film.”
At the heart of Motor City is John Miller (Alan Ritchson), a blue-collar hero who falls for a local gangster’s girl (Shailene Woodley). Said crime boss (Ben Foster) enacts a frame job that sends Miller to prison, setting up the bombastic and violent events to follow.
Set in 1970s Detroit, this ode to grindhouse revenge thrillers features almost no dialogue. Instead, a soundtrack curated by Michigander Jack White paces the action — though some of the most affecting moments are scored by Steve Jablonsky.
“The lack of dialogue focuses the narrative on the actors: their emotions, their movements, their bodies tell the story along with some impressive camera work and staging,” Wescott says. “As much as I personally get excited about films that are boundary pushing or transgressive in their ideas, it’s equally important that this program showcases films that are experimental in style and format.”
Despite the sparse script, Motor City ain't no highfalutin' art film. It's sub-two hour runtime is packed to the brim with muscles, masculinity and mainstream music from icons like Bill Withers, Fleetwood Mac and White himself.
“Motor City is unabashedly and very earnestly a throwback film in its aesthetics and ideals, but if you’re along for the sometimes cheesy ride, it is also a reminder of the sensory power of cinema.”
Fans of FNW will almost certainly enjoy this five-day blend of traditional, experimental, ethnographic and regional documentaries. A blend of in-person and at-home screenings — paired with workshops and panels — focus on personal, underrepresented and culturally specific subjects.
Launched in 2020, Mimesis receives most of its films through open submissions. This year, the shortest films are just 3 minutes; the longest is 99, and the documentaries cover everything from the Palestinian genocide to environmental collapse and gun violence. Expect some lighter fare, too: On Ye Monkey’s Brand (or pink sands unlimited) features the sexual explorations of two puppets on a remote island.
“Mimesis is my personal favorite of the local festivals we’ve worked with over the past few years,” Wescott says. “If you are a fan of our Friday Night Weird programming, especially because you like films that are provocative and challenging and curation that champions voices outside of the mainstream, then you should definitely check out the festival."
