Garden State Began In The Prairie State

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 20, 2005 6:23PM

Chicagoist loved the movie Garden State. Yeah, we know: way to go out on a limb and make a crazy, out-of-left-field statement. In other news, we’re big fans of oxygen and puppies. Still, on paper, it’s not a movie you’d pick as your first choice for a Friday night date night: heavily medicated, out-of-work actor comes home to New Jersey for his mother’s funeral to face up to his past. And yet it works. So much so that the script by writer/director Zach Braff has been short-listed by many for an original screenplay Oscar nomination.

Maybe the reason why the film works so well is that Braff’s baby had an eight-year gestation period. While a student at Northwestern University, Braff made a 25-minute student film back in 1997 called Lionel On A Sun Day that’s similar in tone and theme to Garden State and even features a scene similar to the hotel peepshow scene in GS (some motifs are timeless, aren’t they?). It was recently discovered in the archives of Studio 22, NWU’s student-run production company. Tonight, Studio 22 will present a free screening of Braff’s film along with two other shorts: The Gary We Know And Love and Buskin’ at Block Cinema in Evanston.

While Studio 22 is depending on Lionel to put some butts in the seats, it’s the story of fictional musicians Beef and Nougat in Buskin’ that will frame the evening. The film tells the story of two men on a mission to bring their rock the people and was shot on location in Illinois (we wonder if they got any of those Blago tax breaks)? Beef and Nougat (coincidentally our favorite casserole ingredients) will perform live at 8 PM to kick things off.