The GoodTimesKid

United States

2005

77 Min

Color

1.85:1

English

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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PROD Sara Diaz, Ernesto Garabito, Georgina Riedel

SCR Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo

DP Eric Curtis, Azazel Jacobs, Gerardo Naranjo

CAST Gerardo Naranjo, Azazel Jacobs, Sara Diaz

MUSIC Mandy Hoffman, Gang of Four

AFI FEST

Synopsis

A story about stolen love and stolen identities, literally shot on stolen film… Momma’s Man writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ effortlessly hip second feature is an absurdist comedy of errors, a punk-rock slice of DIY rebellion, and a warmhearted frolic that captures the “amour fou spirit of the early French New Wave” (The Village Voice).

Hot-tempered Echo Park slacker Rodolfo Cano (Jacobs) enlists in the army to escape a meaningless existence with his free-spirited girlfriend Diaz (Diaz). When his call-for-service letter somehow winds up in the hands of another Rodolfo Cano (Gerardo Naranjo, director of Drama/Mex and I’m Gonna Explode), a quietly dignified loner who lives on a sailboat, their three lives intersect in odd and beautifully unexpected ways. Evoking the inventive gags of Chaplin and Jacques Tati, plus the deadpan minimalism of Kaurismäki and Jarmusch, The GoodTimesKid “finds poetry in wordless scenes of observation” (The New York Times).

Director

Azazel Jacobs

Azazel Jacobs, son of avant-garde filmmaker Ken Jacobs, was born in 1972 and raised in New York’s lower Manhattan, where he was surrounded by important and innovative artists. He went to undergraduate school at the film department of SUNY Purchase and graduated in 1995. His thesis film, “Kirk and Kerry,” won Best Short film at the Slamdance Film Festival in 1997 and recently became part of the permanent collection at the Donnell NY Public Library. In 1999 he moved to Los Angeles to study in the directing program at The American Film Institute. While getting his Masters he made the experimental video “Nobody Needs To Know,” which had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in 2003.

Two years later he premiered “The GoodTimesKid,” at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles. The film was co-written with Gerardo Naranjo (director of “Drama/Mex” and the upcoming “Voy A Explotar”) who also starred alongside Azazel’s longtime girlfriend Sara Diaz. The super
low-budget… read more