"The Priest"
If I were going to create a film festival, I’d identify a unique and underserved audience. I’d curate a broad and diverse selection of international movies while staying true to my central vision. I’d create an interactive neighborhood-party atmosphere around my screenings, and hone and grow my festival so that each year is bigger and better than the last.
That last one’s a biggie. If you tell your family and friends (and the local alt-weekly) that you’re starting a film festival, you don’t want it to turn out like your brother’s band — you know, the one that broke up after its first show — or your friend’s podcast, which is “still in the works.” Creating and sustaining a unique and thriving film festival is a massive undertaking, and if I were going to create a film festival, I’d want it to be a lot like Defy. For me, Defy Film Festival was the best Nashville film festival of 2019, and the fifth anniversary of the experimental film showcase is something for all Nashville movie lovers to celebrate.
Of course, this year’s iteration of the fest will only be streaming online, but it will also be free. So no shocking-pink cups overflowing with local beer, but also no picking and choosing between tickets and times, hoping not to miss a gem. The online pivot can now be thought of as a film-fest best practice following six months of cinema celebrations fleeing theatrical screenings amid the COVID-19 pandemic. (The Nashville Film Festival will be doing the same thing next month, naturally, though not for free.) And the free admission might actually attract newbies who’ll become devoted Defy-ers once we can all fest together again, as the weird-movie gods surely intend.
This year’s shorts and features range from abstract and almost-indescribable to surprising, sensual and spiritual.
Wayne is a struggling method actor who inherits a down-and-out adult movie theater after his estranged father passes away. In The Last Porno Show, grief and confusion quickly give way to lubed-up inspiration as Wayne embraces the new creative freedom he discovers in the sweaty underbelly of the pornographic underground. The Last Porno Show is graphic and funny and sweet all at the same time, and at its best it recalls the familial, human moments in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. Wayne wants to unload the real estate to a developer who’s anxious to erect a rock-climbing gym. But Wayne’s plan gets derailed by memories of his sketchy but loving dad, not to mention the cast of colorful characters who depend on the theater as a place to live and work and, you know, watch porn in a theater like a proper cinephile.
"The Explosion of the Swimming Ring"
Patton Oswalt puts on a Catholic collar and struggles with his religious vows playing the title role in “The Priest.” After the death of his brother, a Texas priest yearns for a more adventurous and fulfilling life. Oswalt is the sad, soft center of this comedy-drama that plays from flat-out funny to heartfelt. The film is impressive in its shifting of moods and tones in just a little more than 15 minutes. It’s a short that’s full of unexpected twists, and it’s one of those little movies you’ll want to see blown up into a full feature by the time the end credits roll.
“Garden City Beautiful” captures two friends taking a drive on a sunny afternoon. Images of highway overpasses, street scenes, tree canopies and sidewalk cracks are accompanied by voice-over narration and spoken dialogue taken from a letter written by pioneering American socialist Victor L. Berger in 1895. Director Ben Balcom combines words and images in a poetic collage that superimposes Berger’s vision of a cooperative utopia over our everyday world at the end of the American empire, and maybe at the end of capitalism as we’ve known it. “Garden City Beautiful” is a short that lives up to its name, and its message reminds us that we can transform the world if we’re only willing to change our own minds.
Family vacations can mean wonderful memories and unbearable tensions. “The Explosion of the Swimming Ring” boils down the National Lampoon formula to a couple and their young child at a public swim park. Then it pushes the family to the breaking point in less than 10 minutes. This ferocious little film sends up modern family dynamics with an unexpected savagery that culminates in the titular blow-up.
True crime podcast junkies will dig the grisly twist that “Last Seen” takes on the genre. The short by Drew Van Steenbergen follows Emily — the “new Nancy Drew” and the creator of the eponymous podcast. Emily’s show is a viral sensation, but her murder investigation is hitting a roadblock. She has to get creative to keep the creative juices flowing, and then she gets a clue: You have to think like a killer to catch one.
"Demon Cooler"
Viewers won’t know what to make of “Demon Cooler” given its title, but it couldn’t be more straightforward. This gore-ific exploration of father-son dynamics, male bonding rituals, generational trauma and the politics of craft beer comes to a chunky, gooey head when a son confronts his father with some all-too-real metaphors. The movie pairs minimal wind-up with maximum payoff to deliver a horror-comedy take on a sins-of-the-father yarn.
