Bogus Biographies

ONOUROWN (1990, 47 mins) follows the comic misadventures of two wards from a state-run asylum released due to funding cuts. Artists Joe Gibbons and Tony Oursler play the kooky cases who re-learn the absurdities of life among the allegedly sane. Their darkly diverting days include a comatose Tony tuning in to the daily soaps, and Joe musing on death while strolling in the park with his dog Woody. In one loony sequence, a video therapist (played for every sinister nuance by Tony Conrad) doles out his healing nods on multiple monitors for his two psycho shut-ins. Shorts:In Bryan Boyce's Seven Levels of Heaven (1995, 10:30 mins) televangelist Robert Tilton is trapped inside a satanic re-edit of appropriated footage where madness oozes from every word. Using a droll narrator, Virocode's Ondine's Curse (2000, 11 mins) recounts the tale of a girl obsessed with the microbes swarming in her innards. She inoculates herself by consuming gobs of curious contagion. Anne McGuire's I Am Crazy and You're Not Wrong (1997, 11 mins) gives us a thinly disguised Judy Garland in full, inebriated collapse. Sitting on a stool in a television studio, she belts out incoherent ditties like there's no tomorrow. Plus a comic short by Teddy Dibble.-Steve Seid

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