Austin Film Festival Review: THOR AT THE BUS STOP
Rating: 6/10
Writer/Director: Mike and Jerry Thompson
Cast: Barrett Applegate, Chris McInroy, Dana Bomar, Jason Neistadt, Joe Berry, Robert Shupe
You’ve got to love what you do and, if you don’t, you have to find a way to do what you love. After about 5 minutes of the clever, no-budget suburban surrealist comedy THOR AT THE BUS STOP, it’s pretty clear directors Mike and Jerry Thompson love movies. You love movies too and that’s why you’re reading this but, like me, when it comes to making them, it’s extremely easy to talk yourself out of it. “Oh, my idea is stupid,” “I don’t have enough money,” and “I don’t have the time” are common excuses I use and make myself. But having seen THOR AT THE BUS STOP, I now feel like if you love movies and want to make one, you should just do it.
The basic storyline is reminiscent of SLACKER and SHORT CUTS in that we kind of wander through suburban Nevada meeting odd characters with self-explanatory title names. People like “White Trash Chuck,” “Passenger Seat Pete,” “Little Fred,” and “Big Zed” populate this desert nowhere land and after we meet each character, their paths all begin to criss-cross throughout the film. Each character (and there’s about 20 of them) has a small storyline that eventually gets fleshed out. Some stories are silly, while others are poignant and insightful. We even meet a grumpy Thor, the God of thunder and lightning, who is having a crappy day and as a result, accidentally keeps smiting people due to a subconscious rage issues.
I do have to say THOR AT THE BUS STOP gets a little slow and draggy around the halfway point. Clever quirk can only go so far and I found myself kind of zoning out towards the third act. But throughout all that is a pure joy of filmmaking kind of thing that really makes the film work.
These guys had no budget, but that doesn’t stop them from shooting for the moon. At one point in the film, car windows get shot out and gaffers tape is clearly seen holding the broken glass shards to the rolled-down window of the car. They don’t even try to hide the tape and it doesn’t really matter as we get early on that the aesthetic is, well, cheap. But we also get the point that “this is a broken window” and in the end, the whole film feels like a riff on Michel Gondry’s “sweded” movies in the film BE KIND REWIND. While some people will be put off by the cheapy budget, I think looking beyond that and kind of ignoring it makes THOR AT THE BUS STOP a memorable, fun, and inspiring little movie.
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