Mars (Tribeca Festival)

Once the dust settles from the rush to tackle and absorb as many films as possible during the Tribeca Festival, it’s time to weigh the experience and recap on those films I can’t wait to see again or that spark curiosity about how they will be received by the audience.

In the case of animation, it’s always welcome when there is a place for it in a prominent festival. There is a certain mischievous pleasure in a movie like Mars presenting itself for adults only. With a script and voices by the comedy troupe The Whitest Kids U’Know (led by the late Trevor Moore) and under the direction of Sevan Najarian (after extensive experience directing animated projects for television), it is a science-fiction farce loaded with foul language, explicit violence, and sexual references.

A group of untrained space explorers ends up traveling to the red planet after winning a contest to participate in a reality TV show, thanks to the sponsorship of a billionaire technocrat. Space conquest has been privatized, allowing megalomaniacs like Elron Branson (voiced by Moore) to have absolute freedom to use the most advanced technology to colonize Mars according to his whims. (Elron is an amalgam of magnates Richard Branson and Elon Musk.)

Before going to infinity and beyond, the film starts with the boring suburban life plagued by the domestic worries suffered by Kyle Capshaw (Zach Cregger). As his wedding approaches, so does his anxiety about feeling that his life is already predetermined, so he decides to enter the contest to travel to Mars. You can guess what happens next. Kyle ends up embarking on a space mission, leaving his bride (Darren Trumeter) at the altar, and joins the team formed by Elron and other lucky winners: a religious fanatic, a kidnapping survivor turned cat lady, and a nihilistic rebel tired of being a teacher. But the adventure is not as exciting as Kyle dreamed, as the space capsule never opens to let the crew explore the planet, while Elron has other ideas for the passengers.

Describing the plot of Mars, with its twists and revelations, is to focus on the least significant aspect. The fun lies in the succession of gags and the payoff of provocative and politically incorrect jokes that build up progressively. Fetishes involving dolls, head explosions, and technologies named with acronyms forming offensive phrases are part of the menu specifically designed for audiences who have grown up watching South Park, Family Guy, and The Simpsons.

Although this type of millennial humor might initially seem outdated (Kyle’s best friend is a gay and closeted and constantly devising ways to make inappropriate sexual advances), the film capitalizes well on the absence of raunchy animated comedy that rarely makes it to the big screen. Meanwhile, its best joke lies in the portrayal of Kyle, a mediocre and presumptuous man who can’t stand the idea of being the bad guy in any scenario, while unaware of his tremendous misogyny. He constantly expects to be hero and savior of situations over which he has no real insight or expertise.

With functional but creative 2D animation, it’s a no-brainer that Mars could be a riot for audiences, and not exclusively for those familiar with Moore’s work and his cohorts. This is probably the grand finale for the group, considering the unfortunate absence of its leader.

Boys Go to Jupiter (Tribeca Festival)

Just as animation can be vulgar and profane, it can also be the perfect medium for strangeness, as proven by Boys Go to Jupiter. The other animated feature premiered at Tribeca is a whimsical musical and an almost psychedelic trip to the suburbs of Florida where the most adorable alien invasion is one of the many oddities found during a prolonged summer tedium. (Jupiter is not the planet but a city in the state.) The joke is that you can expect anything to happen in the Sunshine State.

In his feature-length debut, the 3D animator and illustrator Julian Glander brings to life an exotic world and quirky characters as if it were an illustrated children’s tale where the only rule is to abandon logic and fully immerse in fantasy. The voice cast includes talents like Jack Corbett, Elsie Fisher, Janeane Garofalo, Julio Torres, and Sarah Sherman, among others, in what feels like a labor of love by those involved to boost the profile of an independent project.

Abundant in original songs that indie pop bands would kill for, Boys Go to Jupiter can be defined as a coming-of-age fable about an ambitious teenager overly concerned with making money who loses sight of the wonders and magic around him. Billy 5000 (Corbett) has dropped out of school, has no time to hang out with his childhood friends, and dedicates his days delivering food for Grubster: he hopes to accumulate $5000 to move out (as he lives with his older sister). His daily gigs are disrupted by the encounter with a round, gelatinous creature from outer space, which in turn is related to others of its kind discreetly wandering the town. Visually, the rudimentary 3D animation enhances the movie’s strangeness in its favor, but the palette is bright enough in its colors and dynamism to create a dreamlike experience probably unlike any American animated movie this year.

Steve Buscemi in The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer (Tribeca Festival)

While animation is not always as respected as it deserves due to its pigeonholing as family entertainment, cult movies in the making are less fortunate. Nonetheless, the Tribeca Festival grants space for films not conceived to be taken too seriously. The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer—with a title that long, there’s no doubt about its delightful silliness—is an amalgam of noir and black comedy that satisfies peculiar appetites.

The film stars John Magaro and Steve Buscemi in the respective roles of writer and serial killer. After a successful first book that won him an award, Keane (Magaro) suffers from writer’s block that has lasted for months. In gatherings with friends, he explains the plot of the book he is writing, a fiction centered in prehistoric times about Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals. If acquaintances remain prudently silent to his boring and pretentious chatter, his wife, Suzie (Britt Lower), is less polite in hiding her displeasure. Tired of dealing with her husband’s pursuit of a career that has long ceased to bear fruit, she asks for a divorce when they return home, much to his dismay.

Keane now finds himself at a crossroads, and his life becomes even more complicated when he is courted by a mysterious character in the bars and diners he frequents, Kollmick (Buscemi), who insists he admires Keane’s work and would like to be his new source of inspiration. Kollmick then reveals himself as a serial killer who is willing to expose both his profession and his psyche if Keane is willing to write a book about it.

The juicy premise quickly adds twists and misunderstandings, to the point that Kollmick ends up posing as the marriage counselor attending the couple in crisis, while Suzie comes to believe her husband plans to kill her. Conceived by Turkish director Tolga Karacelik, in his English-language debut, the film takes advantage of its actors’ talents and boasts enough narrative and visual creativity (with images of the Neanderthal novel Keane is writing) to offer a good time that is not as trivial as the title suggests. It also has enough cultivated references that reflect a sincere passion for film history.