85. Make Believe Seattle #1: ALIENS ABDUCTED MY PARENTS AND NOW I FEEL KINDA LEFT OUT (2023) dir. Jake Van Wagoner

Make Believe Seattle is a genre film festival celebrating their inaugural year this weekend (March 23-26)! Thanks to Ted Geoghegan, I have the opportunity to cover six titles for this year's run, releasing the reviews as a miniseries on THE MOVIES.First up is the festival's Opening Night selection, Jake Van Wagoner's ALIENS ABDUCTED MY PARENTS AND NOW I FEEL KINDA LEFT OUT.Don't worry. It also took me a couple tries to say that title right out loud.The movie follows Itsy (Emma Tremblay), an aspiring teenage journalist frustrated by her family's move from the city to remote Utah town Pebble Falls, where the only kind of action comes in the form of snapping photos of dilapidated signs and cars. That is, until she meets Calvin Kipler (Jacob Buster), a classmate convinced his parents were abducted by aliens 10 years prior. I don't say "convinced" with the mental image of Charlie Kelly gesticulating wildly at a string-covered board. Calvin's made a full-blown spacesuit and wears it to school. He refers to people he trust as "friendlies." Star Trek's Vulcan "V" hand sign is not a pop culture gesture to him; it is intergalactic custom. This kid makes Randy Quaid from INDEPENDENCE DAY seem like Scully and Mulder.Seeing an opportunity to write a story about Calvin that'll win her a summer semester abroad at NYU, Itsy befriends the spaceman. At first, she focuses only on the story, but starts to warm up to Calvin, maybe moreso than expected.It's pretty easy for me to fall for Calvin too. Buster's performance is magnetic, drawing me and Itsy in with wit and goofball charm. As the story progresses, so does his emotional range, and I can attribute most of his moments that don't work to the strength of the screenplay/direction, which sometimes neuters the heavier portions of his story.However, this isn't a heavy movie. Calvin and Itsy's problems seem relatable enough even to young kids, and watching them fidget with and tweak gizmos inside Calvin's glorified shed of a research lab reminds me of the best times I spent dicking about trying to invent shit that would change the world (mainly a working web-shooter, but I digress). There's fun to be had and majesties to gawk at. After all, there's something about a night lit up with stars that seems not just ripe, but also infinite with possibility, with dreams.Does this thing suffer the effects of a limited budget? Yeah; any driving scene's got a rough green screen effect. Props often feel cobbled together from thrift shops and junkyards. Sometimes, the space VFX looks like something copied and pasted from After Effects, but when this stuff works, it's got an Amblin-inspired, DIY charm. What can I say? I like my sci-fi scrappy. Give it a watch!---------------------------Review THE MOVIES on Apple Podcasts & I'll read it on the next episode!Follow The Movies on ⁠⁠Instagram ⁠⁠& ⁠⁠Letterboxd⁠⁠Financially support the podcast via the ⁠⁠tip jar!