Award-winning Asheville independent film Anywhere USA finally gets Asheville release – on cable TV

2 Comments

1. 

   Good Job October 7, 2010

   Couldn't have been shot in a more appropriate place. Most folks outside of Asheville's litle bubble of self importance have never heard of the place. And if they have it's because of the Bilmtore Estate. Even Thomas Wolfe left and never went back. You can dress it up all you want but it's still a little mountain resort town. Great, it has "weird" people but truly weird, eccentric, odd people don't define themselves as such or they are simply self-parodies. Which is precisely what Asheville is.

   Reply
2. 

   Not A Critic October 5, 2010

   The Times of London liked it:
   "Anthony Haney-Jardine's religious trilogy of short stories, Anywhere USA, is an utterly potty joy. In part one, a couple of happily married trailer trash hippies are torn apart when a paranoid dwarf in the next caravan becomes convinced that Tammy is turning into an Arab terrorist. In part two, a young girl drinks a bottle of whisky and pulls a tooth out with a pair of pliers to see if the Tooth Fairy really exists. In part three, a retired, middle-aged golfing bore has an orgasmic and guilty urge to bond with a black person. This is an absurd, delightful, and surprisingly gentle satire."

   The Gazette of Montreal liked it:
   " . . . easily the funniest movie of the festival that skewers NASCAR and pistachio nuts with oddball aplomb. . . .gut-busting comedy – the director casts unknowns from the local North Carolina Wal-Mart to star as representatives of Middle America in a three-part plot. . . Haney-Jardine says his film has confused more than a few of his own countrymen, but people from outside the U.S. seem to get it right away. . . . 'I've experienced racism and betrayal,' he says, 'but I'm not a political filmmaker. This is a portrait of where I live.'"

   Variety didn't like it:
   "'Anywhere USA' is dressed up in postmodern smarty pants, only to resolve as an excessively overlong personal project that chases its own tail. . . . Euro fests may book this Sundance special jury prize-winner as a supposedly clever piece of new Americana, but auds everywhere will ignore it. . . Asheville, N.C.-shot film is partly designed as a valentine to the Smoky Mountains burg, and yet(per title), the place is never named."

   Reply