Last month I got interested in the indie writer/director Todd Rohal, and reviewed three of his movies: THE GUATEMALAN HANDSHAKE, THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM, and of course his latest, FUCK MY SON!. Now I watched another one.
Of the Rohal joints I’ve seen so far, NATURE CALLS (2012) is the closest to a normal, mainstream comedy. It stars well known comedians/funny actors, it’s full of many broad, silly jokes, its third act shift into craziness overdrive is tame compared to Rohal’s other films. But not in a bad way. It’s a very funny movie with plenty of the director’s personality evident, which is kind of a relief because jesus christ man look at this DVD cover:
I don’t think Rohal is trying to be subversive with this one, but it kinda does the trick just by looking like disposable crap but having some bluntly accurate social satire and a strange tone that’s pretty much a family movie but with death and boobs and cursing. (read the rest of this shit…)
FUCK MY SON! is a movie that, for the foreseeable future, you’re only gonna see if it comes to your town as part of a road show. Writer/director Todd Rohal (
THE CATECHISM CATACLYSM (2011) is weirdly-titled Todd Rohal comedy #2, and truly the only thing I knew about it was that the OCN partner label Factory 25 gave it a special edition blu-ray a few years ago and some people seemed to think it was some type of cult classic. I feel pretty ignorant now because it turns out it’s a Seattle production and I even know a couple people in the credits. I had no idea.
Recently I got invited to see this new movie called FUCK MY SON!. It’s a disgusting x-rated comedy based on a Johnny Ryan comic, meant as a theatrical experience, they’re road-showing a 35mm print around and it was in Seattle on Friday and Saturday. Beforehand I looked at writer/director Todd Rohal’s filmography and noticed two titles I’d been vaguely aware of for many years. I really had no idea what they were about, just that somebody some time told me they were good. I decided to watch those and review them before the new one, so today we’ll be discussing Rohal’s 2006 debut THE GUATEMALAN HANDSHAKE. It’s the very definition of a “not for everyone” movie, though in an entirely different way than FUCK MY SON!. But I liked it, so I’ll tell you about it in case you’re not everyone.
