Colma: The Musical.

"A sort of anti-High School Musical, [Colma: The Musical] follows three friends in the flush of their new post-high school freedom, who are also caught in the headlights of their as-yet-uncertain-yet-fast-approaching-futures." At SF360, Matt Sussman talks with director Richard Wong and composer/writer/actor HP Mendoza.

Glen Helfland also meets them - for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, where Dennis Harvey writes: "The worthy underdog is usually a little overrated; one current case in point is another movie musical, Once. But in the case of Colma: The Musical, over the past 15 months a number of newspaper writers and people at subsequent festivals have been as surprised and delighted as I was at that first screening. Now Richard Wong's movie is at a theater near you - at least in San Francisco, with New York City and Los Angeles showings soon to come - and it's possible it could become a feel-good sleeper around the nation. Like, well, Once."

Jeffrey M Anderson finds it "surprisingly delightful, hilarious... The acting is all above average, but Paul Kolsanoff as Billy's boss is a comic standout."

"Although nowhere near as technically accomplished as American Graffiti, Diner or even Clerks, Colma: The Musical shares with them a convincing empathy for what it's like to be on the precipice of adulthood, totally rattled about making the leap," writes the San Francisco Chronicle's Ruthe Stein. "And Colma offers something the earlier coming-of-age sagas don't: musical numbers and graveyards. It deserves to be seen for its sheer originality and audacity."

Posted by dwhudson at June 22, 2007 7:57 AM