A punk rock BLADE RUNNER for artists

In the dystopian city of Shitville, population 999.8 billion, where everything is an unreal version of Kowloon Walled City, rival artists Cucumber Montgomery (Amy Davis) and Futurecide (James Duval) prepare for a dual/duel art show at the National Museum of Modern Art. The show, with each artist taking over a separate wing, is to decide who is the true genius of contemporary art.

This is modern indie movie maximalism meets art world contempt via the duality of punk’s eternal drive to create and its desire for total annihilation. While nearly all of Moritsugu’s previous films have had an intellectual undercurrent to them this time he finally pulls off his muzzle and finally goes all in to use critical theory as a bludgeon against everything, including, and especially, itself. While all his films have had a bit of parody in them, NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION does it the best – because it’s the most overt. Here he becomes the Swiftian punk rocker in the world of semiotics and high art.

Always on the bleeding edge of underground cinema, Moritsugu has left Super 8 and 16mm scuzziness in the past and has embraced the chaos that is the digital. Everything on screen feels like it’s nowhere real, yet we’ve all been in there in our minds. Visually reminiscent of films like Vera Drew’s THE PEOPLE’S JOKER and Dylan Mars Greenberg’s SPIRIT RISER, Moritsugu shows that he can help but be in the conversation of the greats of contemporary underground American filmmakers who are making very interesting and very now films.

With a nearly wall to wall soundtrack of punk rock and punk spirited music, Moritsugu delivers exactly what you’d hope for, and expect, decades into his career – sarcasm and cynicism through absolutely earnest filmmaking.

Fuck art. Fuck you. Watch this and go die.