PATRICK RIESTER IN COMPUTER CHESS

This is a preview published in connection with the San Francisco International Film Festival showing of this film. Full review published when the film was theatrically released will be found here.

Terrifyingly nerdy

Mumblecore "godfather" Bujalski takes a new direction here, reconstructing a weekend ca. 1980 computer chess convention using improvisation and ancient Portapak videotape equipment and mimicking the shooting style to go with it, recapturing a scary nerdiness. The result can be brilliant or totally stupid depending how you look at it. The cult potential is unquestionable, but it's not a whole lot of fun to watch unless you're studiously filtering it through Pynchon and comparing it favorably with Pablo Larrain and and Harmony Korine, which some will do, but many will not. Distinctly odd this certainly is, and possibly a bold new stop for Bujalski on the way to greater things.

Computer Chess debuted at Sundance (surprisingly, a first for Bujalski), in its "Next" section. It was also shown at Berlin, Montclair, San Francisco (the latter where it was screened for this review), and it will be released in the US 17 July 2013 (NYC). May 2 and 4 SFIFF showings.Opens July 26 in the SF Bay Area, Opera Plaza in San Francisco and the Shattuck in Berkeley.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.