BEST OF 2003
– Village Voice Film Critics’ Poll.
Winner of “Best Feature” Award at both New York and Chicago Underground Film Festivals.
Music by: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, J-Church, The Gossip, Skull Kontrol, The Monorchid, The Mollybolts, Camelot, and Mel Davis
Kyp Malone, Courtney Stephens, Amy Davis, Drew, Victor of Aquitaine, Peter Friedrich, Pete Lee, Melissa, Chris Golden, Emily Ryan, Matt Bonar, Jennifer Gentile, Dustin Donaldson, Izabela Wojcik, Spencer Hicks, David Hahn, Danny Plotnick, Valerie Soe, Craig Baldwin, Jenny Hacker, Cup Iwata, Lance Hahn.
WRITTEN, DIRECTED & PRODUCED BY
Jon Moritsugu
PRODUCED BY Andrea Sperling
CO-WRITTEN BY Amy Davis
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER Camilla Whyte
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Amy Davis
SOUND RECORDISTS Kevin Cunningham, Caitlin Martensson, Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
COSTUMES AND STYLING
Apathy Productions
ADDITIONAL WARDROBE Liz Collins, Eugenia Kim, Nisa
HAIR DESIGNER Jason T. Rail
SOUND DESIGN AND MIX Patrick Bowsher
EDITOR Fred Tollhouse
ORIGINAL MUSIC BY Mel Davis
ARRANGED AND CONDUCTED BY Mel Davis
MUSIC BY Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, J-Church, the Gossip, Skull Kontrol, The Monorchid, Toni Ann, The Mollybolts, Camelot
SCUMROCK was shot on analog Hi-8, edited on linear VHS, and mastered onto beta-sp.
A project of CREATIVE CAPITAL. Funded in part by the CHICAGO UNDERGROUND FILM FUND a service of the Chicago Underground Film Festival, with additional assistance by the BAY AREA VIDEO COALITION
“BEST OF 2003” THE VILLAGE VOICE FILM CRITICS POLL
Filmmaker Jon Moritsugu never met a loser he didn’t like. After making no-budget film-festival sensations like FAME WHORE, his latest and most successfully realized flick dives into the cultural underground. The story of aging hipsters, SCUMROCK is a stylishly scruffy (shot on very lo-fi video), heartfelt movie that could, ironically, get its resolutely independent creator more mainstream attention. Our grade: A.
E! ONLINE, 11-6-2004
Ever-subversive San Francisco independent filmmaker Jon Moritsugu is back with SCUMROCK, a deadpan comedy that relies on a sense of spot-on accuracy to capture the lives of a would-be filmmaker (Kyp Malone of the band TV ON THE RADIO) and his friend, a rock performer striving for a comeback (Amy Davis, who also shot the film)… SCUMROCK is as fast and energetic as it is funny. Moritsugu is a true visionary who knows how to meld images and sound.
LA TIMES, Kevin Thomas, 11-5-2004
The perma-sneers of MOD FUCK EXPLOSION director Jon Moritsugu’s fringe-art rebels are refreshingly turned on themselves in this sweetly mocking comedy about the perils of reaching 30 with little to show for one’s avant-gardeness except crazy hair and an ossifying attitude. The movie’s loose, short scenes play like a form of post-punk vaudeville, and it’s idealism that gets the pie in the face… This is a quick-witted, smartly poignant effort from someone who’s earned his indie cred and has hit upon a rich new vein for counterculture comedy: slacker desperation.
LA WEEKLY, Robert Abele, 11-2004
Gripping, strangely beautiful, and poignant.
THE VILLAGE VOICE, Edward Crouse, 3-2004
The Village Voice Film Critics Poll
BEST FEATURE
New York Underground Film Festival
BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Anthology Film Archives, NYC – 1 week run w/ retrospective
Vancouver Int’l Film Festival, Canada
Singapore Int’l Film Festival
Edmonton Film Festival – closing night movie
Wisconsin Film Festival
Microcinefest, Baltimore – opening night movie
Three Rivers Film Festival, Pittsburgh
Film Arts Foundation Festival, SF
Toronto Reel Asian Int’l Film Festival
Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
Blinding Light!, Vancouver
Other Cinema at ATA, SF
The Cube Cinema, Bristol, UK
Cinematheque, Brighton, UK
Basement Films, Albuquerque, NM
Chicago Asian American Showcase
Indie Microcinema, SF
Laemmle’s Fairfax 3 Cinema, LA – 1 week run
Clinton Street Theater, Portland – 1 week run
Alamo Drafthouse, Austin
Cleveland Cinematheque
Sound Unseen Music & Film Festival, Minneapolis
Winnepeg Cinematheque, Canada
