RKSS (Simard, Whissell and Whissell). Courtesy of Epic Pictures
Frame for frame, or pixel for pixel, it’s hard to find a Sundance 2015 selection that beats Turbo Kid for sheer cheeseball exuberance. This trio of Canuck first-time feature directors (their previous short-form work includes the ABCs of Death entry “T is for Turbo”) have cobbled together a blood-drenched cartoon tailor-made for hipster midnight screenings and fanboy cults. Imagine Mega Man meets Mad Max, set in post-apocalyptic 1997, where V8s have been replaced by BMX bicycles and ’80s pop culture is enshrined as the apex of civilization. Silly but never snarky, RKSS (which stands for Road Kill Super Stars) pay giddy and gleeful homage to Z-Grade gore and bottom rack VHS rentals, with enough energy to power a hundred synth-rock soundtracks. It’s no surprise Hollywood agencies were clamoring to sign them. Verve ended up with their signatures. – J.M.
Kiki Kitana Rodriguez and Mya Taylor (actresses, Tangerine)
Mya Taylor and Kiki Kitana Rodriguez in Tangerine. Photograph by Radium Cheung
While both of these ladies make powerful debuts on their own, it’s hard to separate their symbiotically linked performances (enhanced by the pair’s real-life friendship) in Sean Baker’s gem of a film. As Sin-Dee Rella and Alexandra, two transgender prostitutes roaming West Hollywood on Christmas Eve, Rodriguez and Taylor are the twin engines of both the most pathos and the most gleeful, bitchy hilarity at Sundance this year. They stab each other in the back and, at the same time, have each others’ backs; their fast-talking friendship can survive anything Los Angeles throws at them, whether its a punch thrown by a disgruntled client, a customer’s very angry mother-in-law, or a Big Gulp cup. While neither is trained as an actress, we pray we’ll see Taylor and Rodriguez again onscreen; comedic timing like theirs must not go to waste. – L.C.
Gregg Turkington (actor, Entertainment)
Gregg Turkington in Entertainment. Courtesy of the Sundance Institute
If you’re a fan of The Tim and Eric Awesome Show, or have caught Gregg Turkington’s decades-long performance as greasy, throwback insult comedian Neil Hamburger (more of an anti-comedian, actually), it may seem odd to consider a man who has carved out a cult career in alternative comedy and animated fare (like Gravity Falls) a breakthrough artist. Yet in director Rick Alverson’s purposefully uncomfortable Entertainment, Turkington takes center-stage and commands more attention and admiration than ever (he previously appeared supporting Tim Heidecker in Alverson’s 2012 The Comedy). Playing a bottom-of-the-barrel comedian, he shuffles through soulless Mojave Desert towns, performing for ever-shrinking crowds. It’s a depressingly dark, sometimes hallucinatory journey that plays like a mash-up of John Cassavetes and David Lynch. But even as we struggle to follow its alienating rhythms, Turkington pulls us along, filling his pathetic protagonist with such pained humanity that we can’t turn away. – J. M. MM
Read last year’s Sundance Breakthrough list here.
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