Morgan Jon Fox's 'OMG/HAHAHA' shows at Studio on the Square
Morgan Jon Fox's latest feature, the obliquely titled "omg/HaHaHa," was jokingly dubbed "the 'Titanic' of Indie Memphis" after it earned a record five awards this month at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
Andy Harper goes tête-à-tête with a turtle in Morgan Jon Fox's "omg/HaHaHa," winner of five Indie Memphis awards.
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Awards hauls aside, the movies couldn't be more different, as the trophies themselves indicate. (The Indie Memphis prize is no golden statuette but a stylized mason jar.)
Unlike James Cameron's box-office behemoth, Fox's film is intimate and tender -- an impressionistic, "bloggy" slice of Midtown life. Former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell, an Indie Memphis juror, called it "playful and innovative ... a film that could play
just as well on a laptop or a cell phone as in a theater."
Nevertheless, a theater is where you can now find Fox's film: Malco Theatres senior vice president Jimmy Tashie was sufficiently impressed with the movie's Indie Memphis performance (which included a post-awards ceremony sellout screening) to give "omg/HaHaHa" a week's run at the Studio on the Square, beginning today.
By arrangement with MTV New Media, the screenings will be preceded by the trailer for Craig Brewer's upcoming made-in-Memphis Web series "$5 Cover," featuring Amy LaVere, Al Kapone, Harlan T. Bobo and other local performers. The trailer will not begin airing on the MTV networks until 2009.
Malco has given special runs to local movies before, the most successful being Brewer's "The Poor & Hungry," a surprise hit that ran for six weeks in 2000 at the Studio on the Square.
Said Tashie: "We're always happy to find local talent that seems to have an audience in their hometown. Morgan's movie was well-received during Indie Memphis, and hopefully that will translate into some people wanting to see what brought the crowds in at the festival."
Fox and several of his collaborators and cast members will introduce the film and answer questions tonight, at both the 7:30 and 9:45 screenings. Fox said he also will try to show up for most of the other night screenings, to prepare audiences for his unconventional film.
"If you're looking for a beginning, a middle and an end, there are plenty of Hollywood directors who are giving you those," he said.
The movie was shot on digital video cameras, with a small crew, friends for actors, and an almost nonexistent budget. The movie's images sometimes are decorated with Fox's trademark use of onscreen text -- a device that now seems prescient, given the ubiquity of "texting."
"This is a small story, using the resources and elements that we have to their fullest," said Fox, who has been an innovator and mentor in the local film community, through the Memphis Digital Arts Co-operative and his Sawed-Off Collaboratory production company. "This is an attempt to depict our realities, in a realistic way."
He said "omg/HaHaHa" -- the title is Internet shorthand for "Oh my god," followed by laughter -- is structured like a series of interconnected short films, with a unifying theme that he identified as "parents and their kids, which is a relationship that affects almost every human being." Vignettes on this theme deal with unplanned pregnancy, playground philosophizing, gender confusion, parental breakups and sexual awakening.
At Indie Memphis, "omg/HaHaHa" was named best feature in the "Hometowner" category, for movies created by residents of Memphis and Shelby County. The festival jury created an additional four special awards for the film, including a "Special Jury Prize for Acting" that went to two of the project's young stars, Jake Casey and Ed Porter.
-- John Beifuss: 529-2394
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