4:30
STRAY BULLETS (2016, Jack Fessenden, 83 mins, Asa Spurlock, Jack Fessenden, James Le Gros, John Speredakos, Larry Fessenden, Kevin Corrigan) In upstate New York, two teenage boys are tasked with cleaning out their father’s old mobile home on an abandoned property, but the boys are in for a surprise when they discover three crooks on the run have taken refuge in the trailer.
6:30
BITTER FEAST (2010, Joe Maggio, 103 mins, James Le Gros, Joshua Leonard, Amy Seimetz, Larry Fessenden, Mario Batali) Peter Grey, an overly zealous television chef, kidnaps J.T. Franks, an influential and notoriously snarky food blogger after a particularly nasty review deals the final blow to Grey’s already plummeting career. Sequestered deep in the woods of the Hudson Valley, Grey keeps Franks chained up in a basement, presenting him with a series of deceptively simple food challenges – from preparing a perfect egg over easy, to grilling a steak precisely medium rare – punishing him sadistically for anything less than total perfection.
More info on the Museum of Modern Art Larry Fessenden & Glass Eye Pix retrospective
Miles is swept up in the lore of the Wendigo, explained to him by a mysterious Indigenous man as an insatiable monster locked in a never-ending cycle of growth and hunger. Magical minorities and pilfered mythos are troublesome ground, but Fessenden threads the needle with dialogue acknowledging stolen land and by filtering the legend through a child’s perspective. In fantastic bursts of montage featuring historical illustrations of vague provenance, Fessenden captures perfectly the way a child’s imagination runs with the baton offered by arcane imagery. Miles begins to feel the presence of the Wendigo, a shapeshifter, who might arrive as wind, or a horned monster, or a human.
