I love it when familiar or (in)famous faces turn up unexpectedly in new contexts. It happened when KK Barrett of the Screamers showed up as Spike Jonze’s production designer, and it’s happening now with David McDermott and Peter McGough’s new film, Mean to Me, a 12-minute end-of-the-affair noir starring Agyness Deyn, in her acting debut.
You may (or may not) remember McDermott’s immortal harangues from Glenn O’Brien’s TV Party. Exhibit A:
Designed to showcase, as Deborah Harry so succinctly put it, “neighborhood access to your friendly freaks around the block,” TV Party was an anarchic and often brilliant forum for a coterie of artists, musicians and writers just on the cusp of fame (or, in some cases, obscurity).
A TV Party regular, McDermott is one of these true East Village eccentrics. Through his partnership with McGough, he has sought to live entirely out of time, viewing the present as a trap and a dead end. The past, however, is filled with endless possibilities.
Partially underwritten by a number of corporate sponsors, this new project pushes their quietly anachronistic work into a new realm of commercial possibility. Watch the trailer via the New York Times T blog.
COURTESY OF CHEIM & READ