Roman
ROMAN. 2006
Director: Angela Bettis

BURRO BOY. 2006
Director: Zach Passero

Reviewed by Paghat the Ratgirl



RomanStarring Lucky McKee as the sad, sad loser Roman (2006), who works as a wielder by day.

Come evenings, he sits alone in his crappy motel-like apartment drinking bear & staring out the window at nothing. An excellent soundrack & effective tone of despair grabs anyone who delights in films of dark mood.

He has a crush on a beautiful young woman (Kristen Bell) in the same building, but hasn't the nerve to talk to her, though he's on the cusp of being her stalker.

He rarely speaks to his fellow weilders. They think he's bizarre even knowing nothing about him beyond the fact (strange to them) that he has no television. Since this lack defines him as odd, Roman seemingly attempts to normalize himself by drawing a tv screen on the wall, & stares at that.

RomanOne day he goes up on the apartment room to smoke & drink beer & glory of glories, that girl joins him & wants one of his beers.

Surprisingly she's a bit of a weirdo too & suddenly it's not so improbable such a beauty might like a lonely loser like Roman.

Their getting to know each other goes along quite sweetly. Roman for the first time in his life may have an actual friend, maybe even, not inconceivably, a lover. Unfortunately, his inate strangeness erupts & he "accidently" kills her.

A fellow worker gives him a black & white television, but there's no reception in his apartment. So now he watches the fuzziness & white noise.

He does manage to catch a wonderful cartoon on the fuzzy set, of a singing skeleton on a cigar-chomping skeleton donkey.

Burro BoyBe sure to stay tuned to the film until after the credits are over, for you'll get the complete uninterupted play of Zach Passero's short musical cartoon Burro Boy (2006). It's fantastically great.

His life goes on as lonely & pathetic as it was before, but now he additionally has to think of himself as "a fuck up" who killed a nice girl before even learning her name.

He becomes obsessed with another girl in the building & fights against his urge to get to know her, certain of what he's apt to do if he does. His pretence of disinterest intrigues Eva (Nectar Rose), so she goes out of her way to get to know him.

Lesbian teen porn gives Roman the courage to finally respond to Eva. He tells himself, "If I take it slow, things won't go -- like they did." Once again it becomes a sweet friendship & Eva's clearly liking him even though he's such a strange man.

She's wonderfully eccentric & soon it's kind of hard to tell which of these two people is odder. She, like himself, will not let anyone in her apartment, apparently because she's working on an art project & the place is a mess, but maybe it's over something much worse.

Meanwhile, the first girl who he killed, he keeps in his bathtub packed in ice. He has named her Isis. One Sunday he cuts off her hand to take Isis on a drive to the country, strapping her securely in the seat belt & playing nice music for her.

RomanThey -- Roman & the hand of Isis -- go to an isolated lake & sit together as though having a lovely picnic outing. The pleasant holiday concludes with his sinking the hand in the lake.

On a peculiar date with Eva, she admits that she only has one favorite thing. Death. Death is exciting to her, like a beautiful painting, or love. Could things still be looking up for Roman?

Every Sunday he does the picnic thing with another of Isis's body parts, until he's down to just a foot, very stenchy when Eva comes to call & for the first time he lets her in. They make love with the foot nearby. A couple days later she invites him to her apartment for the first time, because she has finished her art project, & it's a doozy.

This amazing "psychos in love" type movie was written by its star Lucky McKee. His director, Angela Bettis, is someone Lucky had previously directed in the amazingly cool girl-psycho movie May (2002), among the best films of its kind. This swapping of the role of psycho & film director makes May & Roman an obvious choice for a double-bill movie party.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl



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