BLOWBACK: Season One: Episode 1 & 2 DVD
September 23, 2008 8:10 AM   Subscribe

BLOWBACK: Season One: Episode 1 & 2 DVD
Available now on DVD at TeamFILO.org, the first two episodes of BLOWBACK feature never-before-seen footage of the 9/11 attacks and begin Team FILO’s attack on the wall between humor and beauty. FILO addresses a second imperative, the injection of preteen sleepover enthusiasm into the lives of box-job oppressed 20-something men, with equal verve. FILO stands for Friendly Intervention Liberation Organization; the cast of BLOWBACK has been drafted out of their standard-life prisons as part of a Friendly Intervention.

This seven part radical art-comedy series, while serving as a document of the FILO intervention process (on the reality plane), offers, on the narrative plane, a tale centered around the September 11th attacks, as covered by struggling reporter Dan Fogelberg. The film uses comedy to puncture the sanctimony surrounding this seminal event, as well spinning a more obscure yarn: the rise and demise of Slippy Jim Aplomb, the preeminent current-events bard of our time. The two characters seize on 9/11 in polar ways: for Fogelberg, it becomes a botched opportunity to recapture the journalistic limelight, while Slippy seizes the moment to convert the rage of the nation into an anthem; a chant for the bereaved
The seven episodes follow our characters through their seminal days as mentor and protégé at the 1000 Islands homo-fascist Franzia camp (where Slippy lands after being recruited to put his minstreling skills to work molding minds over the ZankCo airwaves), to Slippy’s escape and meteoritic rise on the streets of Stardom City as a political-absurdist jingle master. His pop success and inevitable druggy decline is covered, ironically, by Fogelberg (who has made his own escape from the 1000 islands) on his On the Ball entertainment show, where he has been relegated after messianic missteps in his coverage of 9/11. Slippy’s attempt to assassinate Mayor McCheese provokes the introduction of another character, jet-setting fonduist Glen Merengue, who has been flown in from his retreat on the Isle of Stromboli to try to put the Mayor together again. Slippy eludes capture after the incident, and Fogelberg signs on for an unforgettable pursuit, complete with meta-fight dance-offs in front of some of Chicago’s most notable architecture. Their final showdown, atop the roof of Slippy’s hideout in an old candy factory, gives Dan and Slippy every narrative reason to pull out all the stops, and they wield apple cider vinegar and mayonnaise (respectively) with blockbuster abandon.
Don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about? I left 90% of the stuff out, too. It all makes sense if you watch the thing straight through, and don’t miss the buttressing details I didn’t have space for here. And by the way, this blurb’s “fullness” is indicative of the chunky verbal exposition that’s all over the series. It is really a hallmark (for better or worse) of the films’ dense, piss-your-pants attack.
P.S. The BLOWBACK saga continues on YouTube, where I am posting episodes 3-7 as I compress them.
posted by framedmistake (1 comment total)

Utter tripe.
posted by felix at 12:04 PM on September 24, 2008


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