Gentlemen Broncos

It’s unbelievable that a film as totally bizarre yet accessible as Gentlemen Broncos never played theatrically in Houston yet was made under the auspices of a major studio distributorship (Fox Searchlight) and found its way to DVD last month. I mean, for the sake of the Cosmic Muffin, Fox Searchlight dumped this film late last year yet they released Amelia like it was a champ. FS can market the shit out of a film, witness The Wrestler or more currently Crazy Heart. All they had to do was advertise “from the director of Napoleon Dynamite.”
Gentlemen Broncos revolves around science fiction foo, and plagiarism foo and dysfunctional nuclear unit foo. A young lad (Michael Angarano) shows his first draft of a sci-fi novel called Yeast Lords to a lecturing artist (Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement) who steals the idea verbatim and publishes same to great success. Director Jared Hess intercuts versions of Yeast Lords, starring a hysterically funny Sam Rockwell as well as his pet lynx, with Angarano’s rite of passage from Oedipal boy to man adding heft to the story. DVD commentary from Hess and wife and co-scripter Jerusha Hess puts puzzle pieces into place. Best ever use of the Zager and Evans song “In the Year 2525.”