While some have lamented that Sundance Film Festival has skewed more celebrity-focused in recent years, giving credence to star wattage over quality, those people often don’t explore the sidebars, and they certainly didn’t go see Lemon and Kuso. The two most peculiar films of the festival — and amongst the year, so far — will arrive this summer and new trailers have landed for both.
First up, Lemon comes from Janicza Bravo and Brett Gelman, following the latter as his life unravels in the strangest of ways. Also starring Judy Greer, Michael Cera, Fred Melamed, Rhea Perlman, Gillian Jacobs, Jon Daly, Martin Starr, Megan Mullally, Jeff Garlin, and Nia Long, it was actually one of the few films at the festival I didn’t review because I was left dumbfounded at what I just saw, for better or worse.
The next film, which hits theaters and Shudder shortly, is Kuso, the directorial debut of Flying Lotus. Following the survivors of Los Angeles’ worst earthquake, we said in our review, “if you came for the blood, sweat, tears, semen, and amniotic fluid, then Flying Lotus will give you your money’s worth in a nasty piece of work that would make Matthew Barney cringe.”
Prepare for the peculiar with both trailers below.
Lemon: a person or thing that proves to be defective, imperfect, or unsatisfactory. Isaac Lachmann is a dud. Isaac Lachmann is 40. Isaac Lachmann is a man in free fall immobilized by mediocrity. His career is going nowhere. His girlfriend of ten years is leaving him. And his overbearing family doesn’t help matters. What did he do to deserve this? Things were supposed to work out differently for him. Isaac Lachmann had big dreams. Now he just watches as his life unravels.
Broadcasting through a makeshift network of discarded televisions, KUSO depicts the aftermath of Los Angeles’s worst earthquake nightmare. Viewers travel between screens and aftershocks into the twisted lives of the survived, experiencing a hallucination that is half-Cronenberg, half-Ren & Stimpy.
The debut film from acclaimed producer and rapper Flying Lotus, KUSO is a blistering, fever dream of filmmaking that uses music, special effects and animation to take a unique look at the dark history of America.
Lemon arrives on August 18, while Kuso lands on July 21.