ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS: sending up seekers

Photo caption: Lexie Mountain in ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

The broadly comic Adventures in Success traces the misadventures of a self-help retreat center led by Peggy (Lexie Mountain), a self-described energy transformationist. Peggy claims to have experienced a 12-hour orgasm. Her movement is centered on the female orgasm, the mantra is Jilling Off, and the sessions are essentially orgies where men are not allowed to ejaculate.

Of course, Adventures in Success sends up self-help movements, New Age affectations, and, especially, would-be cult leaders. As Peggy, Lexie Mountain projects a demented self-assurance.

The comic tone is set early – the opening shot is an impressive 28-second performance of urination art.

ADVENTURES IN SUCCESS. Photo courtesy of Nashville Film Festival.

There some inspired LOL moments, but Adventures in Success is not a laugh-a-minute. It runs out of energy when the group takes a final, doomed bus trip to Vegas.

Cinequest hosted the world premiere of Adventures in Success; I screened it for the Nashville Film Festival. Adventures in Success is streaming from Amazon and AppleTV.

MASCOTS: more deadpan hilarity from the Best In Show people

Don Lake, Ed Begley, Jr., Jane Lynch and Michael Hitchcock in MASCOTS
Don Lake, Ed Begley, Jr., Jane Lynch and Michael Hitchcock in MASCOTS

Mascots is the latest from Christopher Guest, the king of the mockumentary.  After co-writing This Is Spinal Tap, Guest wrote and directed Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show (his masterpiece), A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration, and ten years after For Your Consideration, Mascots.  Guest has set his stories in the worlds of amateur theater, competitive dog shows, the folk singing moment of the 1960s and indie filmmaking.  His comedy is based on people taking their passions way too seriously.  This time, in Mascots, he has set the story in a world that NO ONE could take seriously – a fictional championship competition among mascots for sports teams.

Guest doesn’t really make fun of the subject matter as much as the human behavior that is exposed and accentuated by competition, especially Big Fish In Little Pond competition: officiousness, self-importance, striving, insecurity and self-delusion.

Guest brings along his repertory company of master-improvisers: Parker Posey, Ed Begley, Jr., Fred Willard, Jane Lynch, Don Lake, John Michael Higgins, Jim Piddock, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Hitchcock, Harry Shearer and Guest himself. They all play their characters with complete commitment – these folks are earnestly devoting their entire lives to the silliest possible passion.

This time, he’s added the always hilarious Zach Woods (Silicon Valley) and Chris O’Dowd.  Another mockumentary newcomer,  Susan Yeagley is especially good as the gum-chomping, nymphomaniacal sister of Alvin the Armadillo.

The Jack the Plumber routine must be seen to be believed, there’s a surprise Bollywood number, and a very sly running gag about furries.

Mascots is playing in a few theaters but easier to find streaming on Netflix Instant, where I viewed it.

Cinequest: Congratulations!

In the very funny deadpan comedy Congratulations!, a squad of stolid cops search for missing ten-year old in his own house – and move into the home, too.  Writer-director Mike Brune sends up the police procedural in the vein of Airplane! (and Brune makes no secret of his admiration for the Zucker brothers).  The dough-faced John Curran is superb as the police detective who determinedly leads the search behind the couch and under the coffee table.

Filmmaker Brune cleverly finds new ways to sustain the joke throughout the movie, until an absurd climax and a very funny final shot.  Fittingly for such a subversive film, Brune shot the film at his parent’s suburban Atlanta home while they were vacationing.

I saw Congratulations! at its world premiere at Cinequest. Congratulations! plays again at Cinequest on March 5.