JOHN GETS WASTED

(willamette week) Awkward pauses and uneven film quality? These are hallmarks of any flick making the transition from film school assignment to solid indie. Unfortunately, the first full-length offering from local Paycheck to Paycheck Productions lives in an unpleasant limbo where nearly-competent film composition enables bad taste. Still, the Kickstarted brainchild of proud Videorama colleagues Christopher Tucker and Will LP soldiers on as a giddily failed experiment. When the titular John is given the mixed blessing of unemployment, it relieves him of a grueling daily trek to Beaverton but delivers him straight to identity crisis and, somewhat unbelievably, his first-ever high. What follows is a fond visual ode (limerick?) to Portland, with a frat house sensibility. But poor performances from Tucker (as John), his coke-addled vixen, and the supporting cast make Wasted a pretty apt description of John’s odyssey of excess—though to be fair, it also provides a pretty accurate view of Portland through the hazy lens of one’s first crystal meth experience. It’s as though Tucker and LP wondered why Office Space shied away from a valuable psychoactive drug subplot, and filled the gaps in for themselves. They picked a lovely setting.