Jocko Weyland Video | Book Interviews

This ultra-kinetic sensory assault is a one-of-a-kind achievement, and certainly the ONLY drag racing monster movie you'll ever need to see. A crazy-quilt mixture of documentary footage, animation, Lynchian surrealism and freaky monsters, the 18-minute RED AND ROSY is a FUN film you'll want to view over and over. Viewing RED AND ROSY, one tends to wonder what this jam-packed little film might look like stretched to feature length. As it turns out, enough footage was apparently shot to fill out a feature but, according to its director, the result would be "a boring piece if shit." As it is, we have an intense, adrenaline-fuelled "movie concentrate" with a multi-pronged, rapid-fire narrative held together by snippets of real drag racing footage and dispassionate narration that's often at odds with the onscreen action. The approach works better than you might expect: far from seeming clumsy or pretentious, the film is fast, streamlined and nasty, not unlike the supercharged vehicles at its center. Frank Grow's love of drag racing is evident throughout. RED AND ROSY is a veritable ode to the sport and its accompanying subculture, in particular the drag racing themed paintings of Robert Williams, whose lurid art was an evident influence on the look of the film's monsters. The rock and roll soundtrack is equally memorable, as are the mind-tugging dream/hallucination sequences, which feature the protagonists' heads outlined in animated flames (like those you'd see painted on the ...

• Jocko Weyland