David Zellner in Ghostbox CowboyGhostbox Cowboy was an under-the-radar late-2018 release. It had runs in La, Sf, and NYC. It’s been available to rent VOD since Christmas. But outside the rave from Glenn Kenny in the New York Times, its profile has been limited to festival blurbs (mostly positive) from Tribeca, where it premiered last May, an example of how hard it is to get people to watch a movie. And this movie is a tough sell, sure, with its indie names (David Zellner and Robert Longstreet) barely recognizable in wigs and dentures half the time; with its hyper-digital look (no Alexa here); with its anxiety-inducing sound design and low rumbling score. But it’s one of the best American films about the precarious state of capitalism–specifically, its influence on modern China and the pie-eyed gringos intent on wringing free some riches for themselves. I sat down with director,...
- 4/22/2019
- MUBI
“We wanted to show how a chicken dealer (Lam’s actual profession at the time) lives. The whole film unfolded in a bizarre way because we were overwhelmed by incidents in the improvisation. Lam’s car had no brakes, no headlights, and no registration. It was really a patience-mobile that forced us to stop when we least expected. The introduction of the character of the devil in the bush came up in Lam’s reflections when we broke down. ‘Let’s not stop here,’ he said every time the car refused to go on, ‘there are devils here!’” —Jean Rouch, from Cine-Ethnography “I’m not a poet, I’m an entrepreneur”—Jimmy Van Horn Eminently practical people, when Americans do diaspora it’s usually a kind of one-stop shopping—aiming to hit both sides of the same coin—hedonism and capitalism. So when Jimmy Van Horn (David Zellner) the Ghostbox Cowboy of the title,...
- 4/22/2019
- MUBI
Ghostbox Cowboy might be John Maringouin‘s first foray into the narrative form, but there is a lineage to his previous docu features; best known for his 2009 documentary Big River Man, about a man’s attempt to swim the entirety of the Amazon river. Ghostbox Cowboy stars David Zellner as Jimmy Van Horn, half of the Zellner brothers duo that directed the indie hit Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter and more recently Damsel which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Ghostbox is a satire about an idealistic entrepreneur who travels to China seeking investment for his product that allows one to speak with ghosts, though it becomes clear that he’s in way over his head.…...
- 11/30/2018
- by Matt Delman
- IONCINEMA.com
Damn Sell: Maringouin’s No-Frills Pynchonian Mind-blowing Masterpiece
Unfolding like a Thomas Pynchon novel, John Maringouin’s latest oeuvre follows an American inventor-of-sorts who gets taken for a ride in an exotic cityscape. Like its characters, this fiction debut manipulates the viewer and takes them on an outlandish trip through China’s underground. There’s a raw, rough around the edges, kinetic energy that tonally matches the Safdie Bros.’ Good Time sans relying on violence to maintain suspense. Altogether disorienting, Ghostbox Cowboy makes for a trippy, mind-blowing experience.
Filmmaker David Zellner plays Jimmy Van Horn, an overly optimistic dolt with a new product called Ghostr that claims to provide a communication link with dead loved ones.…...
Unfolding like a Thomas Pynchon novel, John Maringouin’s latest oeuvre follows an American inventor-of-sorts who gets taken for a ride in an exotic cityscape. Like its characters, this fiction debut manipulates the viewer and takes them on an outlandish trip through China’s underground. There’s a raw, rough around the edges, kinetic energy that tonally matches the Safdie Bros.’ Good Time sans relying on violence to maintain suspense. Altogether disorienting, Ghostbox Cowboy makes for a trippy, mind-blowing experience.
Filmmaker David Zellner plays Jimmy Van Horn, an overly optimistic dolt with a new product called Ghostr that claims to provide a communication link with dead loved ones.…...
- 11/30/2018
- by Matt Delman
- IONCINEMA.com
Wild West capitalism hits the Far East with a vengeance in documentarian John Maringouin’s adventuresome first narrative feature, “Ghostbox Cowboy.” This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect. Starring indie-cinema regulars David Zellner and Robert Longstreet as Yank hustler-entrepreneurs wading into the financially frenetic waters of the People’s Republic, it’s a freewheeling absurdist parable that might be dubbed “Fear and Loathing in the Chinese Economic Miracle.”
Though by its very nature somewhat uneven and unwieldy, what Maringouin has wrought here has a kind of exhilarating chaos to it, something comparable to relatively few prior films. Alexsey German’s just-restored 1998 “Khrustalvoy, My Car!” and the prime-time Fellini of “8 1/2” come to mind as similar phantasmagorias of modernity’s institutions run amuck.
Appropriately for the era it depicts, “Ghostbox” has a much more jittery, digital aesthetic than those movies,...
Though by its very nature somewhat uneven and unwieldy, what Maringouin has wrought here has a kind of exhilarating chaos to it, something comparable to relatively few prior films. Alexsey German’s just-restored 1998 “Khrustalvoy, My Car!” and the prime-time Fellini of “8 1/2” come to mind as similar phantasmagorias of modernity’s institutions run amuck.
Appropriately for the era it depicts, “Ghostbox” has a much more jittery, digital aesthetic than those movies,...
- 11/30/2018
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
"We're going to pitch our product..." Dark Star Pictures has released an official trailer for a wild, indie, sci-fi western, dark comedy, "morality tale" titled Ghostbox Cowboy, which first premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year. The film is about a dullard Texas entrepreneur who reinvents himself as a cowboy in China's tech wild west, but finds himself at the mercy of corrupt American expats looking to reinvent him once more. Described as an "excitingly fresh, complex perspective on China's economic growth – and the gold rush mentality it inspires." The film stars David Zellner as Jimmy, along with Robert Longstreet, J.R. Cazet, Nicholas Grgich, Specialist, Vincent Xie, and Nan Lin. This looks very, very strange and wacky and trippy as all hell. And oddly raw and unrefined, which may not be for everyone. You need to see. Here's the first official trailer (+ poster) for John Maringouin's Ghostbox Cowboy,...
- 11/22/2018
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Describing “Ghostbox Cowboy” in one or two sentences is almost impossible. And even if it was possible, the description wouldn’t be sufficient enough to fully encapsulate all the craziness that is seen in the film.
Perhaps the best way to dive headfirst into the world of “Ghostbox Cowboy,” short of actually watching the film, is with the new trailer. The footage seen gives viewers a chance to experience the wild, darkly comedic world of filmmaker John Maringouin’s narrative film debut.
Continue reading ‘Ghostbox Cowboy’ Trailer: A Texan Tries To Strike It Rich In China In This Incredibly Strange Dark Comedy at The Playlist.
Perhaps the best way to dive headfirst into the world of “Ghostbox Cowboy,” short of actually watching the film, is with the new trailer. The footage seen gives viewers a chance to experience the wild, darkly comedic world of filmmaker John Maringouin’s narrative film debut.
Continue reading ‘Ghostbox Cowboy’ Trailer: A Texan Tries To Strike It Rich In China In This Incredibly Strange Dark Comedy at The Playlist.
- 11/21/2018
- by Charles Barfield
- The Playlist
Nothing else I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival was as vividly out of its mind as the improbable sight of actor Robert Longstreet roaring across the neon-lit night in Shenzhen, China, rendered absurd in the Toni Erdmann-like drag of a white wig and dental prosthetics. The busy Texas character actor is part of the eccentric circus called Ghostbox Cowboy, which takes a satirical harpoon to the American Dream, parading its deflated form before the funhouse mirror of 21st century China. The writer-director-cinematographer John Maringouin (Big River Man) lathers the frame in a visual texture that captures the psychic […]...
- 5/7/2018
- by Steve Dollar
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Nothing else I saw at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival was as vividly out of its mind as the improbable sight of actor Robert Longstreet roaring across the neon-lit night in Shenzhen, China, rendered absurd in the Toni Erdmann-like drag of a white wig and dental prosthetics. The busy Texas character actor is part of the eccentric circus called Ghostbox Cowboy, which takes a satirical harpoon to the American Dream, parading its deflated form before the funhouse mirror of 21st century China. The writer-director-cinematographer John Maringouin (Big River Man) lathers the frame in a visual texture that captures the psychic […]...
- 5/7/2018
- by Steve Dollar
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
As the Tribeca Film Festival wraps up its latest edition, many of the movies screening across the two-weekend festival have yet to find distribution. This is common at many festivals, and there’s no question that buyers have paid close attention to the hype around some of the festival’s more promising titles. Still, it’s a competitive marketplace out there, so we’re always eager to weigh in. Here are the best 2018 Tribeca movies that still deserve U.S. distribution.
“Diane”
An intimate story about a woman staring death in the face and struggling to see its reflection in her own life, “Diane” is as depressing as it sounds. On the other hand, Kent Jones’ jury-winning narrative debut is told with such lucid sadness that it eventually achieves a kind of hallucinatory calm. Mary Kay Place delivers the best performance of her career in the title role, a retired...
“Diane”
An intimate story about a woman staring death in the face and struggling to see its reflection in her own life, “Diane” is as depressing as it sounds. On the other hand, Kent Jones’ jury-winning narrative debut is told with such lucid sadness that it eventually achieves a kind of hallucinatory calm. Mary Kay Place delivers the best performance of her career in the title role, a retired...
- 4/28/2018
- by Eric Kohn, David Ehrlich, Kate Erbland and Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Though it was made before the election, John Maringouin’s shoestring huckster fable Ghostbox Cowboy can claim to capture the confusion, resentment and sheer strangeness of the moment, introducing a collection of delusional would-be entrepreneurs for whom The Art of the Deal is surely a foundational text. David Zellner, the director of Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter and the recent Damsel, plays Jimmy Van Horn, a Texan in a ten-gallon hat who moves to Shenzhen, China, to make his fortune in the city’s tech boom. Other oddball refugees from the U.S. are there to welcome him, each loudly proclaiming that America has had...
- 4/25/2018
- by Harry Windsor
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Now in its eighth year, the American Film Festival offers a unique perspective on recent developments in U.S. indie filmmaking. That’s because it happens in Poland, staged at the stylish Kino Nowe Horyzonty film center in Wroclaw, also home to the summer New Horizons festival, which has more of a European tilt.
Although the festival, which recently concluded, surveys many favorites from Sundance and South by Southwest, the curation doesn’t merely transpose selections to a new setting. It imports a lively assortment of filmmakers, as well, and creates a cozy, engaged atmosphere more akin to the communal vibe of the Maryland Film Festival. Indeed, to rub shoulders in a crowd that included Jody Lee Lipes, Noel Wells, Dustin Guy Defa, Nathan Silver, producer Mike Ryan, Jessica Oreck and Mike Ott is to experience a deep dive into the creative bustle of current indie ferment.
That spirit is...
Although the festival, which recently concluded, surveys many favorites from Sundance and South by Southwest, the curation doesn’t merely transpose selections to a new setting. It imports a lively assortment of filmmakers, as well, and creates a cozy, engaged atmosphere more akin to the communal vibe of the Maryland Film Festival. Indeed, to rub shoulders in a crowd that included Jody Lee Lipes, Noel Wells, Dustin Guy Defa, Nathan Silver, producer Mike Ryan, Jessica Oreck and Mike Ott is to experience a deep dive into the creative bustle of current indie ferment.
That spirit is...
- 11/14/2017
- by Steve Dollar
- Indiewire
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