Most of the raves (well-deserved) for David Russo’s Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, which gets its first local run starting tonight at the Northwest Film Forum after wowing the Sundance and Seattle festivals, have been over its “sick,” “dark,” weird and wacky humor. As though there were something odd about unsuspecting janitors eating experimental “self-heating” cookies, suffering excruciating labor pains, and excreting—er, birthing—blue, headless flopping fish.

The hoopla misses two points: Russo’s ingenuity and imagination, already evident in the animated shorts where he developed the eye-popping effects and manic editing displayed here (how does that salmon swim through the forest?). And his affection, even tenderness, for his gonzo loser janitors, from goth temptress Tania Raymonde to rubber-faced Vince Vieluf (imagine Tim Curry drawn by Dr. Seuss) as the irrepressible aspiring artist O.C. They start out as cartoons but become people we care about—and whom Russo clearly knows.

Russo worked for a decade as a janitor in Seattle while working up to this movie. I spent my 19th summer as the bottom sub in a Boston post office, sometimes clocking in at midnight to sort letters and packages with the misfits and semi-desperate characters who made a life of it. Night shifts breed a weird camaraderie; you feel like you’re the last people on earth. Russo catches that feeling. At heart, Little Dizzle is a bromance about paternity. Or maternity. Or both.

And speaking of Tim Curry (of The Rocky Horror Picture Show), this one also has great potential as a midnight cult movie. Another milestone for made-in-Seattle cinema.

The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle plays August 13-19 at 7 and 9 at the Northwest Film Forum, which helped fund it. David Russo
is supposed to attend all performances. No word on whether admission includes cookies.