Harmony Korine’s latest oddball film – “Trash Humpers” – has found an unusual distributor: a record label.
Drag City Records announced that it will distribute the director’s wack-o-piece – which follows a “small gang of sinister, creepy, elderly peeping-toms” around Nashville as they “drag baby dolls around on bicycles, bust television sets with hammers, slap big fat asses while proudly chomping down on stogies” — and yes, do some “trash humping,” too.
Korine — who co-wrote the controversial “Kids” and directed “Gummo,” “Julien Donkey-Boy” (all starring his then girlfriend, Chloë Sevigny) and “Mister Lonely” — shot “Trash Humpers” entirely on VHS and made to look like found footage.
That Korine opted for a weird technique should not surprise anyone – this is, after all, the same dude who tried to produce an entire movie provoking random people into beating him up — “a cross between a Buster Keaton vehicle and a snuff film.”
The label – home to such artists as Stereolab, Joanna Newsom, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and, at one time, indie rock icons Pavement – plans to distribute the film like it was a band. “It’s not that different from booking a tour,” the label said in announcing the deal, “and there’s a lot less gear involved.” (Drag City has long distributed DVDs – including “Wonder Showzen” – but this is its the first theatrical film.)
“Trash Humpers” will open at New York’s Cinema Village on May 7 and in Los Angeles at the Nuart Theater on May 14.
Watch the film’s trailer below. Here’s the rest of the “tour”:
May 7 Cinema Village, New York
May 14 Nuart Theatre, Los Angeles
May 28 Belcourt Theatre, Nashville
June 3 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
June 4 Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago
June 9 Cinema Arts Centre, Huntington, New York
June 11 Starz Film Center, Denver
June 18 Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
June 18 Brattle Theater, Cambridge, Massachussetts
June 18 Hollywood Theatre, Portland, Oregon
June 18 Northwest Film Forum, Seattle
June 18 Pickford Film Center, Bellingham, Washington
June 24 Guild Cinema, Albuquerque
June 28 Alamo Drafthouse, Austin
July 2 Uptown Theater, Minneapolis
July 8 Cleveland Cinematheque, Cleveland
July 9 Gateway Film Center, Columbus, Ohio
July 16 Ragtag Cinema, Columbia, Missouri
August 7 International House, Philadelphia
September 11 George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
