2010 Directed by Kathy Fehl, Ian Teal
A lonely, sticky fingered waitress is looking to leave town while her complacent insurance salesman husband gets taken for a ride by a Southern viper. Romance, murder, golf and freight trains are the themes of a strange trip through the South.
USA
USA
Guys, this is a weird one. Shot in 1994 but not completed and released until sixteen years later, Mint Julep is a quirky comedy/daytime noir from the filmmaking team of Kathy Fehl and Ian Teal. Their work’s style and tone are highly reminiscent of a production made around the same time, Kelly Reichardt’s River of Grass, besides both stories covering somewhat similar ground regarding small-town wives who would do just about anything to escape their humdrum existences. In Mint Julep’s case, however, the results are as mixed as the cocktail itself.
For the first forty or so minutes, we are immersed in the life of Deirdre (Angelica Page, daughter of Geraldine Page and Rip Torn), who has had it with…
Trivia: The film was started over twenty-five years ago in 1994. The film makers set it aside before raising the money to finish the film in 2010.
Mint Julep has moody jazz, beautiful imagery, an aged aesthetic (70s-90s), and dry, subtle humor. There’s something alluring about the lo-fi genre too; (perhaps personal) but a coziness that resides within its crevices. The film manages to come across like older European cinema and modern American film in one go with its combination of editing style, music, and unconventional humor. It has sequences that are greatly disjointed but rebound from the punchline of a joke or a breathtaking image. Mint Julep is a nice venture into a a thief’s unfurling life with the backdrop of the deep south and quirky performances.
Y’all got any more of them lo-fi, 90s, arthouse films starring Angelica Page with David Morse and James Gandolfini?
Happy Birthday Mr. G—
RIP, we miss you here on earth.
Viewed on Amazon Prime.
a slice of forgotten meandering southern gothic that seems to be the missing piece from the 90's American independent cinema pie.
Just when you think you know where it's going, Mint Julep (more aptly titled "Aberdeen" in it's previous incarnation) is a small town crime tale that hits a fork in the road and takes a path less traveled. And not only that but perhaps a path that's mainly erroneous...at least in terms of narrative propulsion. Reminds me of Hartley in it's aimlessness, contradictory relationships, and fixation on characters that launch into diatribes (though sometimes wordless or at least without much to "say"). Leaves you with more questions than answers but not sure if you can expect much else once…
8
Now that's the small town rock'n'roll I'm talkin' about! Kathy Fehl & Ian Teal give me just about everything I could ever want from an American indie of this breed. Minimalism as an organic lens for naturalism despite being an all encompassing odyssey of characters and locations (as well as genre). Can't believe this film is as unknown as it is. I'm the tenth person to log it on Letterboxd in its 10 year lifespan and that baffles me. More eyes on this one please!
Streaming on Prime Video as of this writing.
Despite being released officially in 2010 this has all the hallmarks of a quirky early 1990’s indie gem. Whatever plot synopsis that has been written about this film is only an outline to what actually transpires. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason in how scenes flow from one to another.
I don’t know how long the original filming production went on, but it felt like the filmmakers made shit up depending on their mood or influences on any given day. For example there’s a scene out of nowhere that is like some surreal shit from Tampopo. A naked woman in a dream is lying supine with bacon on her crotch and sunny side up eggs on her…
Stumbled across this when I was checking what David Morse movies were available on Prime. A good find. There’s not much info out there on it, but this article on MUBI by Dan Sallitt pretty much tells you what you need to know. Begun in the ‘90s and not completed until 2010, MINT JULEP (once known as ABERDEEN) is unusual in some very pleasant ways. Like the best of low-budget ‘90s indie cinema, it meanders and pushes against restrictions of formula and genre. Angelica Page (daughter of Geraldine Page and Rip Torn) is pretty damn wonderful as Deirdre, a shoplifting waitress who lams it out of the small southern town of Aberdeen to New York City. Morse plays a groundskeeper on…
