Uncle Kent 2
Director: Joe Swanberg (the first 10 minutes or so), Todd Rohal (the rest)
Writer: Kent Osborne
Sequel to: Uncle Kent
Cast: Kent Osborne, Joe Swanberg, Steve Little, Jennifer Prediger, Kate Herman, Lyndsay Hailey, [SPOILER] ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
Part of: /slash Filmfestival
Seen on: 19.9.2015
[Reviews by cornholio and Maynard.]

Plot:
Kent (Kent Osborne) is dreaming of a seqel to Uncle Kent, a film he shot together with his nephew Joe (Joe Swanberg). But Joe isn’t interested in doing sequels, so he refers Kent to a friend. But Kent might have other things to worry about anyway. He’s about to travel to San Diego Comic Con, although his doctor (Steve Little) asks him not to because there’s something wrong with him. But Kent goes anyway. Things there become weirder and weirder. So weird, in fact, it might just be the end of the world.

I really enjoyed Uncle Kent 2. It goes into a completely different direction from the first film, but it’s a turn I could go along with without problem.

Todd Rohal proved his adpet handling of weirdeness with The Catechism Cataclysm (less so with his disappointing segment in ABCs of Death 2, but even that was supremely weird). So he was probably the perfect person to take over this film that is wonderfully strange in so many charming ways. There are the small animations every now and then (done by Pendleton Ward). There’s the fact that this is a hard SciFi film that disguises as nerdy mumblecore and somehow that fits perfectly. There are the slight, but effectful special effects. There’s the sense of humor that, while sometimes a little juvenile, is always engaging and respectful of its characters.

And that it would be respectful of the characters was particularly important because I liked those characters, especially Kent – who carried over my sympathies from one film to the next – and Jenny (Jennifer Prediger) who in this one plays a version of herself as the actress who played Kate in the first film.

Speaking of which, I find the blurring the lines between fiction and reality/documentary in both films continuously intriguing and in Uncle Kent 2, they up it quite a bit, while at the same time stepping away from reality with a huge step, which creates wonderful tension.

Above all though, Uncle Kent 2 was entertaining as fuck. I don’t know if the mix of weirdness and meta would have kept me this engaged if the film had been longer [althought the fact that the tagline “Nobody Saw the First Film, So He’s Coming Back for a Second” still cracks me up, so chances are good], but during its duration, I was completely with it and really enjoyed myself.

Summarizing: Great, both as a sequel and as a film on its own.