I follow film websites and picked up a film festival buzz about this movie. I spotted it on Fios pay-per-view and said "what the heck." I like micro-budget films if they are original (being from Baltimore, check out our home boy Matthew Porterfield).
That said, this movie enthralled me. In my youth in the 60s and 70s, I spent a certain amount of time on the road. I hitchhiked from Boston to Provincetown almost effortlessly in 1972. I traveled all around the Baltimore/D.C. area on my thumb. I fear those days are over. Not sure why. But I met a lot of interesting people along the way.
Anyway, a lot of those reminiscences came back watching "Bass Ackwards." Linas, our hero, has basically gotten kicked out of Seattle. No one there who he thought he was tight with wants him around anymore. He ends up on an alpaca farm to make a few bucks and the owner is glad to give Linas his rattletrap VW microbus, a ridiculous vehicle in any man's motor pool. Linas hits the road.
Linas' parents are glad to hear he's on the way home to where they live in Boston. But you can tell they are dubious over what he's up to. They definitely do not want him as a permanent boarder.
Bottom line, Linas is leaving nowhere and headed nowhere. All that matters is what happens to him along the way. And interesting things happen. He picks up and befriends a guy with heavy marital baggage. He flirts with a girl he does not know is married and ends up in a punch-out. He runs out of gas and has to do a Christopher Walken imitation in Lithuanian to get the gas he needs (I kid you not).
It's not much of a spoiler to say Linas lands in an intriguing place in NYC and we see the beginnings of his new life. In fact, the movie ends abruptly where you are really curious what come next. Nevermind. He'll be OK.
This is wonderful independent American cinema. And, one of the best American road movies ever made.
That said, this movie enthralled me. In my youth in the 60s and 70s, I spent a certain amount of time on the road. I hitchhiked from Boston to Provincetown almost effortlessly in 1972. I traveled all around the Baltimore/D.C. area on my thumb. I fear those days are over. Not sure why. But I met a lot of interesting people along the way.
Anyway, a lot of those reminiscences came back watching "Bass Ackwards." Linas, our hero, has basically gotten kicked out of Seattle. No one there who he thought he was tight with wants him around anymore. He ends up on an alpaca farm to make a few bucks and the owner is glad to give Linas his rattletrap VW microbus, a ridiculous vehicle in any man's motor pool. Linas hits the road.
Linas' parents are glad to hear he's on the way home to where they live in Boston. But you can tell they are dubious over what he's up to. They definitely do not want him as a permanent boarder.
Bottom line, Linas is leaving nowhere and headed nowhere. All that matters is what happens to him along the way. And interesting things happen. He picks up and befriends a guy with heavy marital baggage. He flirts with a girl he does not know is married and ends up in a punch-out. He runs out of gas and has to do a Christopher Walken imitation in Lithuanian to get the gas he needs (I kid you not).
It's not much of a spoiler to say Linas lands in an intriguing place in NYC and we see the beginnings of his new life. In fact, the movie ends abruptly where you are really curious what come next. Nevermind. He'll be OK.
This is wonderful independent American cinema. And, one of the best American road movies ever made.