Buzzard (Joel Potrykus, 2014)
Film festivals are double-edged propositions, particularly the Chicago International Film Festival, where so many films have already been vetted ad nauseum following their preceding debuts in Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, etc. Heightened expectations have the uncanny ability to lead to disappointment. Moreover, a film festival experience tends to underscore the patterns found between films. There are plenty of unified themes and ideas to be found in between meager microbudget films like Stephen Cone’s This Afternoon and Cannes powerhouses like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter’s Sleep. While these films all tackle their ideas in different ways, redundancies prove unavoidable. You’d figure a film like Joel Potrykus’ Buzzard would fall within a similar holding pattern. After all, it is clearly indebted to a diverse range of films, from Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver to Richard Linklater’s Slacker. But this cocktail of a film ends being one of the most bombastic releases of the year. It is a big deal.
Read More