Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire

The title of this sticky, low-budget melodrama isn't as quirky as it looks -- it refers to the two main characters, brothers Tony and Chris (real-life siblings Steven and Derick Martini), who reside together in the modest Los Angeles homestead of their recently deceased parents. Tony, nicknamed Smiling Fish by his half-Native American grandmother, is a bleach-blond stoner, aspiring actor, and womanizer; Chris, a/k/a Goat on Fire, is a sullen accountant involved in a miserable long-term relationship.

Written by the brothers Martini and directed by Kevin Jordan, Smiling Fish and Goat on Fire is a dark romantic comedy that has the boys awakening to true love. For Tony, it's a sassy mail-delivery clerk (Christa Miller) whose preteen daughter is also an aspiring actor. For Chris it's a comely Italian animal wrangler (Rosemarie Addeo), though he's still hung up on his manipulative steady. Jordan tosses a rogue pregnancy, covert hook-ups, and a ton of miscommunication into the mix. Some of it grips, but Bill Henderson's elder romantic, put out to pasture in an accounting cubicle, steals the show with his foul mouth, avuncular wisdom, and nostalgia about the origins of black Hollywood.

-- Tom Meek