PHOTO PROVIDED Charlie Tahan is the driver in the movie Drunk Bus, which was shot in Rochester.
The unnamed co-star of “Drunk Bus,” now showing at The Little Theatre, is Rochester. The film’s co-directors, John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke, and producer Eric Hollenbeck are back in town this weekend, a reunion with the city that served as a stand-in for Kent, Ohio, the setting for their film with an indie vibe. “Drunk Bus” smells like something that could develop a cult following: the story of a bus driver who ferries hard-partying college students to and from the town’s bars and other alcohol-driven appointments.
Wake In Fright (aka
Outback) and Nicolas Roeg’s
Walkabout. Though directed by foreigners (Canadian and English, respectively), they were uniquely Australian stories that set the mold for much of what was to come.
And what came was that, by the decade’s end, such homegrown directors as Peter Weir, Bruce Beresford, Gillian Armstrong, George Miller, Fred Schepisi, and Philip Noyce were considered among the world’s leading emergent celluloid talents. While movies from Australia (barring the occasional international production shot there) were seldom seen abroad before 1970, by the 1980s they’d become widely exported and acclaimed.
A couple new features are very much in synch with the templates set by those two original “Australian New Wave” classics, with
Last modified on Tue 25 May 2021 11.01 EDT
Packed with a host of off-kilter characters and traversing some over-familiar indie terrain, this slacker comedy co-directed by John Carlucci and Brandon LaGanke could easily have seemed grating. Nevertheless, believable performances, along with a deep understanding of place, lend Drunk Bus a cheeriness that is entertaining and heartwarming.
Just like the creaky campus bus that he has driven around the same route every night for the past four years, recent graduate Michael (Charlie Tahan) is stuck in a depressing loop. His Catholic girlfriend Amy (Sarah Mezzanotte) has left him for New York, while the still-virgin Michael remains in Kent, Ohio. His daily dealings with drunk students and aggressive, burrito-throwing frat boys bear the same approach: meek numbness and exasperated acceptance. His directionless apathy changes when, after a minor scuffle, Pineapple (Pineapple Tangaroa), an intimidating-looking Samoan security guard with a full
Drunk Bus in Kent, Ohio, home to Kent State University.
The comedy-drama focuses on Michael (played by Charlie Tahan, best-known for the Netflix series
Ozark), a recent college graduate stuck in Kent, where he drives the campus “drunk bus” in a loop each night, picking up inebriated passengers. Things change for him when he s befriended by a tattoo-faced Samoan-American security guard, Pineapple (Pineapple Tangaroa). The movie co-stars Kara Hayward (
Moonrise Kingdom), comedian Dave Hill and Will Forte (
Saturday Night Live and
The Last Man on Earth).
Written by Chris Molinaro, it’s actually based on LaGanke’s experience of driving the campus bus at Kent State, where Tangaroa was his security detail.
Gentle Giant: How a Dallas Piercer is Breaking Down Big-Screen Stereotypes
Pineapple Tangaroa s juicy role in
Drunk Bus, inspired by his own experiences, could help to change the perception of actors with artistic body modifications.
By Todd Jorgenson
Published in
Arts & Entertainment
May 21, 2021
7:23 am
Before we go any further, yes, Pineapple Tangaroa is his legal name, a product of his grandfather’s disdain for his hairstyle choice as a teenager.
“One day I came home with a green mohawk. He said I looked like a damn pineapple,” said Tangaroa, who owns and operates body modification studios in Dallas and Austin. “All my friends laughed, and I hated it, so of course it stuck.”