Sometimes, you’ve got to have a bad idea to make a good movie.
This is the first ever, as far as I and Google can tell, review of the movie Hobocon, a screener of which I was given by the film’s three lead actors–Benny (Rob Couch), Doctor Boxcar (Jason Slingerland) and The Pixie (Wilhelm Rumpf)–during my recent appearance at Kuzuricon.
They propose one great and terrible idea: to go to Gencon, one of the biggest gaming conventions on the planet, and attempt to live there for three full days on nothing.
No money. No motel room. No food. But can they survive on the kindness and the good will of their fellow gamers, a collection of homemade pins that they intend to use as trade goods, as well as three misappropriated press badges (they’re not technically press) to get through three days?
The answer? Yes, but just barely. Sleep deprivation is not pretty.
They’re going to do a whole lot of things with this movie–you can get a general idea of what Gencon is, you can see some interviews on why people come to Gencon, and of course, tips on convention-going for the truly desperate, including “how to cadge free food”, “sleeping in anime rooms”, “night security guards are douchebags”, and of course “hand sanitizer is your all-around hygienic friend”.
Naturally, this is a horrendously bad idea, but one thing is crystalline clear: this is a great movie if you’re even vaguely interested in the convention scene. The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, recognizes that this is an excellent example of a movie only a handful of people will be interested in, and grants it accordingly an eight out of ten. It’s only too bad that many people likely won’t care.
Popularity: unranked [?]
