More Than Just a Fun Trompe-l’Oeil

Brittany Menjivar connects with nepo baby pyromaniacs and rizzmatic chefs at the second installment of the Honorable Mention screening series.

By Brittany MenjivarOctober 2, 2024

HONORABLE MENTION II, Brain Dead Studios, Los Angeles, September 19, 2024.

The logo for Los Angeles–based filmmaker Taylor Alden Thompson’s Honorable Mention screening series is a brick with a camera lens attached—not an artist’s rendering or an AI invention, but a physical item Thompson fashioned. More than just a fun trompe-l’oeil, it speaks to the irreverent quality with which he approaches curation. All of the shorts he presented at his most recent event—a sold-out show at Brain Dead Studios on Fairfax—depict a world askew, one that gets stranger rather than more familiar the longer you look. Genre tropes such as serial killers and bloody specters appeared, although not a single film followed associated plot conventions. Outsider protagonists reigned, with standouts including an arsonist nepo baby and a friendless loner fixated on learning how to land the perfect punch. Fireworks, children, and penises flew through the air (thankfully not all at once).

In a break from routine for a scene currently obsessed with city-centric autofiction, Honorable Mention reoriented our focus to rural Montana, the setting of Lilliya Scarlett Reid’s Bits. Against a beautiful mountain backdrop, we watched what seems to be a love story in bloom—until our would-be Romeo erupts in an angry outburst, and we learn that he has blood on his hands. In later films, striking stylistic choices removed us further from the realm of the ordinary. Parker Love Bowling’s Boudoir could’ve been shot in the 1960s, with cinematography, costumes, and set designs that call to mind Anna Biller’s eye for anachronistic detail. As women apply makeup, press their faces into glass, and splash around in fish tanks—you know, the usual—a disembodied male voice offers wry narration, resulting in an absurdist nature documentary of sorts. Noah Dillon’s music video for his song “Go Somewhere” (with the Hellp) was equally evocative, with a much more modern sensibility. Shots of children frolicking on a playground give way to footage of wartime explosions. Soon, we were watching them play with guns, the film’s quick cuts feigning oblivion to the weight of the imagery.

In a number of the films, dark humor served up sideways social commentary. Tij D’oyen’s Nepotism, Baby! joins the discourse about children of celebrities by casting the ever-expressive Betsey Brown as the daughter of an actress who, desperate to escape her mother’s shadow, slips into a latex catsuit and turns to a life of crime. Spencer Slishman’s Sucker Punch satirically presents a cure for male loneliness: get a personal trainer so you can learn to sock in the face the chef who rizzed up your girlfriend. (Laughs were abundant as his plan failed spectacularly.) Perhaps most thought-provoking was Noah Kentis’s A House of Cards, which plays out like a 21st-century urban legend or the beginning of a riddle: a woman is scrolling on her phone in a public park when a stranger approaches her and rips it out of her hand, proceeding to go through her contacts and draft a variety of disturbing text messages. Who the interloper is and why she’s terrorizing the woman don’t matter—as increasingly dramatic threats give way to tears, one can’t help but ponder how a little black box can hold the potential to ruin a person’s relationships in a matter of minutes.

Following the screening, the standard socializing ensued. Guests migrated to the official afterparty at Genghis Cohen, which delightfully lacked a DJ—ensuring that conversation was the main event. One attendee remarked to me that many of the same names recurred across credits sequences—a sign not of cliquishness but of a vibrant community eager to create together. As I scanned the masses of merrily mingling mutuals, I got the feeling that more than a few new films were already in the works.

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Photo by Jai Love.

LARB Short Takes live event reviews are published in partnership with the nonprofit Online Journalism Project and the Independent Review Crew.