Tag Archives: Alan Resnick

Dance Freak — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review

Dance Freak is screening as part of the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival.


Obie (Robbie Rackleff) wants to build a birdhouse in his birdhouse-building class. Obie’s girlfriend Dorty (Megan Koester), who’s a popular candidate in the mayoral race, just dumped him. The Salad Boys (Allen Cordell, Adam Enders, Sarah Sherman) recently force-fed Obie a concerning amount of salad. Obie has been told that a man dancing freakily out in the parking lot—a Dance Freak, if you will—has made himself “available” to Obie. Obie is being investigated for murder.

Thus is Dance Freak, the debut feature film from Alan Resnick and Robbie Rackleff. It is a surrealist comedy with horrific undertones, although these descriptors do little to describe the feeling and atmosphere of the film.

Rackleff (who also writes and stars) and Resnick were previously members of the Baltimore-based arts collective known as Wham City. Resnick is perhaps best known for Continue reading Dance Freak — Fantasia Festival 2026 Movie Review

Fantasia International Film Festival 2026 — Lineup Preview


It is July, and that means it is time for the Fantasia International Film Festival. It’s one of my favorite film events to cover, as it always introduces me to new faces in the world of speculative genres. This year’s Fantasia has films from some big names—Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse), and Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) among them. Today, I want to dig a bit deeper into the program, including some names that I am pleasantly surprised to see. Here are five films that might be worth putting on your radar.

The 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival runs from Thursday, July 16 to Sunday, August 2 in Montreal.


Blaise (Dimitri Planchon, Jean-Paul Guigue)

There is something about the flat, slightly off-putting art style of Blaise, which premiered in the ACID sidebar at Cannes, that has Continue reading Fantasia International Film Festival 2026 — Lineup Preview

Adult Swim, Anti-Comedy, and Cringe Humor: What’s the Appeal?

Note: This in an in-depth article on Anti-Comedy and Adult Swim programming. If I mention a given show, short film, or feature film, there is a strong chance that I will be giving spoilers for that video, so be cautious. Also, this is a multi-page article; the links to subsequent pages sometimes get lost at the bottom of the page.

 

Anti-Humor. Anti-Comedy. Meta-Humor. Non-Comedy. Whatever hyphenate you want to use to describe the brand of comedy that is purposefully not funny or otherwise lacking in traditional comic structure.

Anti-Comedy, as I will refer to it throughout the rest of this article, is a highly divisive form of comedy (my fascination with the divisive is well founded). Some dismiss it as destructive to quality comedy or simply lazy. Others can’t digest it as something humorous or necessary.

adult-swim-dinner-with-family-with-brett-gelman-and-family-anti-comedy-cringe-humor-analyzed

Late-night television programming block Adult Swim, launched in 2001 as a complement to Cartoon Network’s children’s programming, has harnessed these alternative forms of comedy to seeming success. With shows like Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!The Eric Andre Show, and the short film series of Infomercials, Adult Swim has Continue reading Adult Swim, Anti-Comedy, and Cringe Humor: What’s the Appeal?