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Last August, a little movie called "Baghead" surprised the hell out of me and ended up on my best of the year list. You can read my initial reactions to that film here.  Last night, I attended a special screening of "Humpday" featuring a Q&A session with the film's Director Lynn Shelton.  All in all, it turned out to be an exceptional evening.  When you watch a shoestring budget film like "Humpday" it's always somewhat invigorating (at least for filmmakers in the audience) to listen to the newly minted Director talk openly about the process of getting the film "here."

Still, when the film opens in limited release on July 24, 2009 I suspect that a sense of nominal commercial success will be present during each showtime of its run.  Why?  The film is just flat out funny.  It has the kind of nervous laughter in its DNA.  If you walk down the cinema corridors of a multiplex and hear a rise out of an audience from an auditorium, chances are it's not from "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (even though that film cost more than the world to make). 

Already, some have mistaken "Humpday" as the "gay" comedy of the summer. It's anything but.  "Humpday," following the steps of "Baghead," is the latest arrival from America's mumblecore movement.  What was once just a quick and economical way of shooting films (indoors, at friend's apartments, using friend-actors onscreen, etc.) for artists, is starting to come into focus as a major genre.  And a good number of mumblecore films are pretty startling in their honesty.  Aside from "Baghead," "The Pleasure of Being Robbed"--another mumblecore entry--made a special mention place in my year in review of 2008.

"Humpday" stars Joshua Leonard ("The Blair Witch Project") as Andrew, a roaming hunger artist in search of--completion. Of anything. On a late Thursday night he surprises longtime college friend Ben (played by Mark Duplass, very good) by arriving at his new home, thus waking up Ben's more reserved wife Anna (Alycia Delmore).  From this outset, we can sense the potential fish out of water comedy: Andrew will disrupt Ben's normal and controlled life & probably embarass Ben in front of all of his sophisticated friends.  Laughs will roll.

But Writer/Director Shelton sidesteps those predictable plot developments and instead expands on a drunk conversation that Ben and Andrew share on the following Friday night about pornography and the potential of the genre regaining its artistic flair and status.  Of course, when two grown straight men start talking about sex and are intoxicated, a pissing contest is unavoidable.  Eventually some words are slipped, and by morning the two awake to a pact they promised each other to carry out on the coming Sunday: to get a hotel room and make an "art" film (for an upcoming porn film festival) about two straight men showing their love for each other by fucking. Each other.