"CallBack": Four Stars with a Dictionary * * * *

Last night, The Great Plotnik, theater critic who secretly loves movies, though he's too cheap to ever really GO to any, took The Great Ducknik to see a screening of Eric Wolfson and Michael Degood's new feature film "CallBack." Since Wolfie is best friends with The Great PunkyDunky, and adopted UWG (Uncle With Gifts) to Baby I, and since The Great FiveHead did the costuming for the film, and since Eric's Mom and Dad and Stepdad and lots of friends were all going to be at the screening, Plottie was hoping he'd enjoy the film, so he wouldn't find himself smiling and saying stuff like "Uh, very very special, um hmm, enjoyed it a lot, yes indeedy, first films are difficult, of course, harrumph." The problem turns out to be very different.



The problem is it's impossible to believe this can possibly be a first film. "CallBack" is so funny, so inventive, so enticing, so well directed and acted, and above all it's such a great yarn that you keep waiting for a door to open and Hitchcock or Tarantino or Louis Malle to walk out for his cameo. But no, that's Eric in the cameo, shot in the club in L.A. where he actually works tending bar.

We've got an inside story here, which is to say it's about actors, and acting, and cynicism, but also -- kinda -- about redemption, if you call being forced to direct a talking carrot redemption.

You've got a movie-within-a-movie, where three actors, who have actually assaulted one another on the street at various times, are cast in a film (great name: "Bloodstain") directed by a woman who has been mugged coming out of a convenience store by the actor she has then cast as her lead. Payback time?

Oh, yeah. Big time.



You're going to laugh yourself silly, while gasping for breath, when you see "CallBack." Hope it's soon. A decent theater distribution deal is not so easy to acquire when you're first-timers with no name actors.

Hey, but no biggie. The point of being an artist is creating art and Eric and Michael have already pulled off what some people spend a lifetime trying to accomplish. "CallBack" made The Great Plotnik laugh and squirm, and he kept pulling for all the characters to succeed. That's not easy to do.

The seldom-used Great Plotnik Movie Awards Division has been dusted off, and awards "CallBack" one star for the writing, one star for the directing, one star for the acting and one special star for Johnnie's face while he's being kapowed by the Evil Tony. Tony earns the extra Dictionary, for his dialogue during that same scene, in which he uses some kind of Proto-Pacino dialect where you can just...about...understand a word he is saying. That's Four Stars with a Dictionary, and remember "The English Patient" only got One Star with an Extra Half if they'd give Plotnik his money back.

Way to go Wolfie. Ninjas next time, 'aight?