The Boston Phoenix
Review from issue: July 1 - 8, 1999

[Movie Reviews]

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Bury Me in Kern County

Bury Me In Kern County No one has been able to recapture the raunchy outrageousness of John Waters's films of the early '70s, least of all John Waters. Many, though, have imitated the squalid characters and milieu, affectless acting, and minuscule production values. For most, the trash has been willing but the spirit has been weak, as is the case with Julien Nitzberg's debut feature.

"Timid" Sandra (Mary Sheridan) and rawboned Dean (Judson Mills) are a couple in a redneck town trying to make ends meet by selling drugs. Their lives are ruined when they're busted by the local sheriff and their arrest is broadcast on a Cops-like TV show. Dean's mother kills herself under the strain, and the lovers are hard-pressed just to come up with Dean's bail, never mind the funeral money. Their struggles are wearisome and noisy. Injecting tension and comedy is Sandra's flaky sister Amanda (Mary Lynn Rajskub), and at times the two siblings do create some of the loopiness of the sisters in the brilliant Australian comedy Love Serenade. Nitzberg's humor is of the grave kind, however -- in keeping with the title, two attempted burials are at issue, but Kern County never digs deep enough to uncover anything new or worthwhile.

-- Peter Keough
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