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Originally Posted by Nordicdusk  Is Tusk worth a watch? |
Certainly is. Here's what Cult Labs' hippest jive artist said about it back in November -
"TUSK – When I've sat down with Kevin Smith films in the past, it's been like staying a bit too long in the company of a brilliant but exasperating young person who annoys by being 1) much cleverer and hipper than me, but ultimately also by being 2) actually, objectively annoying anyway. I think stuff like 'Clerk's is great on a cinema level or whatever, but I can't get through that kind of thing without wincing deep down. That said, I really liked 'Red State', which was quite a departure for Smith but still felt like one of his. The same goes for 'Tusk'. It's basically about a hip young podcaster who might be brilliant in some way but is certainly exasperating. He travels to Canada to do an interview, but ends up waylaid by some ancient guy who regales him with tales of meeting Earnest Hemmingway etc etc. This ancient guy then imprisons annoying hipster podcaster and basically turns him into a walrus. Why? I don't know, maybe he has issues or something. Podcaster's girlfriend and his podcaster buddy team up with a comedy French Canadian ex detective and track his sorry fate. It's interesting to see Smith combine his off-hand wordy indieness with such surrealism, but also with much more standard B movie territory. There's something austere and freaky about the build up, but when I was watching the transformation scenes I thought less of Cronenberg or 'Human Centipede' and more of something like a Charles Band film. Horror stylistics may or may not be Smith's thing, but there's no doubting the eerie power of much of the content here, or rather, the impact it has by sometimes managing to be both hilarious and affecting... I think this is summed up by the end scene, where podcaster's now ex gf visits him in his new home, a really bleak, dilapidated animal sanctuary. The just-deserts angle is mocking, self referential and tongue in cheek, but it's also weirdly troubling. Anyway, 'Tusk' is great, I know his latter stuff is miles away from 'Chasing Amy' et al, but frankly I wish he just made films like this all the time."