“Aftermath on Meadowlark Lane” takes place in the minutes following a car crash. The survivors of the wreckage (a fat mother and two adult sons dressed in mariachi costumes) sit across from their demolished vehicle. The sons are not upset by what happened, but they demand that their mother answer a bothersome question: why was one son circumcised while the other retained his foreskin?
Huh? Yes, these men are obsessed about their foreskin (or lack thereof). The uncut one refers to his extra flesh as an “albatross” and moans: “If I was in Europe, I’d be hot stuff.” The circumcised brother, while calling his sibling a “freak,” complains that he’s missing much of his manhood. “I’m probably two inches shorter than I ought to be,” he rues.
Oddly, the film cuts away from this reel nonsense in favor of real nonsense: David and Nathan Zellner, the filmmakers and the stars of the short, are seen with their parents, who viewed the film via a laptop. It seems this is a case of art imitating life – one Zellner is actually circumcised while one is not. So they pose the question of this imbalance to their parents, who stammer out an unconvincing answer.
The Zellner Brothers would do well to zip up their respective flies and make real movies. This flaccid one joke effort is as much fun as a trip to the urologist.
