Friend o’ Microkhan Tristan Patterson is the man most responsible for hipping me to the post-baseball travails of Pedro Guerrero. He is also an immensely talented writer and director whose latest project, Dragonslayer, justifiably took home top honors at the latest SXSW Film Festival. Patterson himself provides a summary of the film that makes it sound nothing short of irresistible:
I met Josh Sandoval at a party in an abandoned airfield off the I-10 in Chino, California. He had a lime-green Mohawk and was wearing a matching Screamers T-shirt, in honor of the L.A. punk band that never recorded an album. He looked malnourished and lost, and claimed he was on 5 tabs of acid. It was impossible to talk to him. His head was lost in the clouds. Then I saw him skate. I think Josh is like a lot of kids from his generation–smart enough to know a potentially bleak future looms and scrambling to figure out a way to survive in it. He’s also on a wavelength all his own.
Dragonslayer is my attempt to capture this wavelength and preserve it: a portrait of a new generation of kids from the rotting suburbs of inland California, and a celebration of what makes one of them so unique.
Great Los Angeles Times write-up here. No release schedule yet, as the movie is still making the festival rounds. But follow Tristan here for word on where to catch his fuzzed-out masterpiece this fall.
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