Auto biography

State of the Art

by Carly Carioli

There's a scene in the locally shot independent feature George's Auto where one of the evil townies spots a familiar face tending a hot-dog stand. "Didn't you use to be on The Joker's Wild?" he asks. The vendor nods, a bit shamefully. Mark Phinney, who co-produced George's Auto and plays one of its more memorable freaks, knows this rueful moment intimately. A former sausage slinger who was, for a brief time, a recognizable television personality, he's currently waiting tables while the finishing touches are put on his film. "There is nothing worse," he laments, "than someone at one of your tables saying, `Hey, didn't you use to be on MTV?' "

There are enough such moments in George's Auto (which will be having a benefit at T.T. the Bear's next Friday) to make the film loosely, well, autobiographical. The filmmakers' story goes something like this. A couple of Medford kids spend years eking out bottom-rung jobs in show biz -- producer/director Kevin Indigaro as a writer of questions for game shows, Phinney as a member of various comedy improv troupes -- before getting their big break: Indigaro as head writer on MTV's Singled Out and Phinney as that show's pudgy, cigar-smoking cupid. After a couple of seasons the pair find themselves suddenly jobless and girlfriendless (Phinney claims Indigaro had a little something going with Carmen Electra; in George's Auto the protagonist's actor girlfriend has a fling with a sports figure). Indigaro ends up writing for a short-lived Disney-produced kids show; other stints include The Keenan Ivory Wayans Show, the Second City comedy troupe, and a job at the Gap in Hollywood.

But eventually both get fed up with the subterranean show-biz treadmill and form a minuscule production company in order to give birth to George's Auto. Shot in 24 days in Medford and New Hampshire, the film follows a Jaguar-driving putz who, on his way to Salem, breaks down in mythical Bethany, Massachusetts. There he seeks the aid of a band of misfits whose patriarch is a brilliant suicidal mechanic with a penchant for fixing cars in the buff. "He breaks down by this magical area in the forest and this garage, George's Auto," explains Phinney, "and from his three days there, from these John Hughes Sixteen Candles-type freaks, he learns what real life and love and loss are all really about."

This whimsical "adult fairy tale" is an L.-Frank-Baum-via-Kevin-Smith fable with a few nods to John Waters and Gummo thrown in. "We wrote, directed, and produced completely on our own," says Phinney. "We designed 14 cars, wardrobes, all the sets. I'm not putting Clerks down, but on a similar budget, maybe a little more, we made a movie with 57 actors and 12 subplots, on 35-millimeter film, that looks like Boogie Nights and which has already been called a Wizard of Oz for the '90s."

Boogie Nights might be stretching it, though the blinding Day-Glo colors of the film's super-customized cars exude a similarly tacky charm, and a couple of the garage's characters -- including a physically challenged junkie who steals every scene he's in -- manage to make their eccentricities truly endearing. A rough version of George's Auto was submitted unsuccessfully to Sundance, but one of the judges nonetheless invited Indigaro to be a guest of the festival. "The thing about us is we didn't stay in Boston," says Phinney. "We went to LA, and now we know the channels to go through. We're heading into our second year [with the film], and by summer I think it'll get picked up. It's been a long, spiritual journey."

The cast and crew plus former World Wrestling Federation champion Bob Backlund will be on hand for a benefit for George's Auto next Friday, February 12, at T.T. the Bear's Place; featured will be the Racketeers, Spirit Varnish, Big Dig, the Heartdrops, the Oscillators, and the Cretins. Tickets are $10. Call 492-BEAR.