Jude (David Dastmalchian) and Bobbie (Kim Shaw) are an
attractive young couple who have dreams about careers, talk about the nice
places they would like to live and take leisurely strolls through the park
hand-in-hand. Jude and Bobbie are
lovers … and they are druggies and they are homeless on the mean streets of
Chicago.
These addicted grifters are the subject of director Collin
Schiffli’s Animals, which after piling up a number of film festival awards
and garnering rave reviews in the process, will making its domestic DVD debut
courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories on Aug. 25.
A brief arthouse run (continuing through June and July)
yields an ARR of 102 days.
David Dastmalchian, who had a number of small gigs in a
number of films, did what any sensible actor looking to move into more
“meatier” roles would do … he wrote one for himself. And it is a doozy!
He and Bobbie have parked their heap of a car — their
shelter — near the Lincoln Park Zoo.
It’s both home and makeshift warehouse for stuff passing through their
hands. They have a daily ritual, get a
fix; get that H(eroin) and in the process they have become quite efficient at
moving stolen goods (uninvited wedding guests shopping at the gift table), but
the clock is ticking and their “lifestyle” is slowing, inexorably taking its
toll.
One is easily reminded of a young Al Pacino and Kitty Winn
doing the same deadly dance a generation ago in director Jerry Schatzberg’s The
Panic in Needle Park. Shaw and
Dasmalchian are every bit as good and their story is every bit as riveting …
and their shared path to destruction seems every bit as real.
Bonus features include a collection of deleted scenes and
the behind-the-scenes featurette titled “Getting to Know the World of Animals.”
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