How about a double feature staring Kentucker Audley, the mumbliest of what's left of Mumblecore?
STRAWBERRY MANSION (B-minus) - This absurdist sci-fi tale looks and feels cheap throughout, playing around with an interesting idea but not taking it very far. Kentucker Audley plays a federal agent named Preble whose job it is to carry out the mission of the government to audit people's dreams (all of which are now recorded and cluttered with advertisements) and calculate taxes on the contents of those dreams.
No-nonsense Preble, dressed like Joe Friday as a Mormon missionary, stumbles on the strawberry-colored house of an old woman mellifluously named Arabella Isadora (Penny Fuller, who played good-time Sally in "All the President's Men"). Bella never upgraded from videotapes, hundreds of which are scattered around her cluttered mansion. She invites Preble to stay in a guest room while he slogs through the backlog. The retrofitted contraption he uses to view the analog collection involves a device that looks like a giant medieval-knight's helmet that covers his head and rests on his shoulders, making him look like a 1950s robot. (It's a nod to the steampunk ethic of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil.")
Preble has his own recurring dreams, which mainly take place in a room the color of strawberry sherbet and which are menaced by ads. Bella shares with him a special helmet that she and her late husband had designed, a device that can disable the advertisements. (A plot twist will introduce Reed Birney ("Mass") as a link to the nefarious dream invaders who are profiting.)
Preble delves into Bella's recurring dreams, which involve her as a young woman. He not only enters the dreams as a hologram and observes, but he also begins to interact with the young version of Bella (an affecting Grace Glowicki). Visual lunacy ensues, as is common in dreams. But while the trippy visuals are fun, they too often bog down in outright silliness that take the story nowhere. We're not fans of CGI, but that would be preferable to the pantomime characters here romping around in big puppet heads.
Audley cooked this up with Albert Birney (Reed's nephew), but their confection is only half-baked. It is not only part "Brazil" but also part "H.R. Pufnstuf" (and too much of the latter). After early promise, the story meanders and eventually fizzles.
CHRISTMAS, AGAIN (2015) (B) - Once again, not much happens here in this morose drama from journeyman Charles Poekel about a melancholy Christmas-tree salesman in Brooklyn. But Audley draws you in with his twisted angst, as the quaintly named Noel, who is mourning a recent failed relationship and perhaps getting involved with a troubled woman who crosses his path.
Poekel revels in the minutiae of the grind of a sidewalk tree salesman, from the rote recitation of types of pines to the lopping off of the bottom of the trunk after a sale to the sweeping up of needles. Noel lives in the trailer parked on the lot, with apparently not much of a life to speak of.
One day he helps a young woman, Lydia (Hannah Gross), from being preyed upon by a homeless man while she is passed out drunk. He shepherds her to his trailer, where he is a gentleman. She will continue to pop up around the lot (as will a jealous boyfriend), but some viewers might be frustrated by what little happens to them (or anyone else).
The colorful characters come and go (including not a few insufferable yuppies), and as Christmas Eve nears, Noel makes a few tenuous connections, culminating in some last-minute deliveries that jolt the movie out of its cramped confines (and out of Noel's cobwebbed brain). An appearance by Andrea Suarez Paz is a much-needed boost, as her character offers at least a glimpse of hope.
Poekel's visual palette is pure indie gloom. He is partial to angled close-ups and disorienting out-of-focus colored lights. This art-house workout is one big sullen mood (it's refreshingly non-festive), and Audley is the man to pull it off.
BONUS TRACK
Our title track, from Richard and Linda Thompson:
Marissa Nadler with "All Love Must Die," during a key scene in "Christmas, Again":
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