Internet fame (Interstardom? Celwebrity?) is a fickle thing. Its shelf life is awfully limited (the anti-Twinkie, if you will) and more often than not, fame is achieved accidentally or against one’s will. For every creative marriage proposal, flash mob, and thought-provoking art project there’s twenty Star Wars Kids, Grape Stompin’ Ladies and myriad other examples of Schadenfreude writ large. Point being, the internet thrives on the skeevy.* 

And with that in mind, the plot of the absurd comedy 3, 2, 1...Frankie Go Boom comes into focus-- brothers Bruce (Chris O’Dowd) and Frank (Charlie Hunnam) have had a tempestuous relationship for most of their lives with Bruce generally tormenting Frank and often capturing it on video. Now that Bruce has finally cleaned himself up, Frank assumes things will change for the better. Needless to say, they don’t. And they don’t in a massively entertaining way.

If you watched the trailer, you can see that complications most definitely ensue and that they would be classified as being of the comedic variety (Comedicus Complicathicus would be the genus and species). And with a cast packed to the gills with rising stars Lizzy Caplan (Party Down, Cloverfield, Bachelorette), Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids, This is 40), and Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy, Deadfall, Pacific Rim) as well as established talent (Hellboy, Mr. Big and Nora Dunn), this looks to be one of the most star-studded films of this year’s festival. 

I would’ve said mainstreamiest (because I like to make up words, mostly), but the subject matter and directions the plots looks to zig and zag in would seem to preclude this from appealing to everyone. If you enjoy laughing yourself silly, this would be one of the wisest investments to make at this year’s festival. Raucous comedies always feed off the energy of its audience, and one thing the MFF offers in abundance is energetic audiences. As an added bonus, director Jordan Roberts and executive producer Elliott Lewitt will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A so think up your best Q’s so we get some sweet, sweet A afterwards. I look forward to seeing 3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom and you there as well.

Advanced tickets to 3,2,1... Frankie Go Boom are no longer available online, but can be purchased at any of our film festival Box Offices.

* Why the TRON sequel didn’t feature a massive virus-ridden dystopia with an endless parade of adverts for dong pills and ‘HOT LOCAL PRESBYTERIAN SINGLES READY TO MINGLE’ I’ll never know.