Slice o’ Life: Fresh documentary perspectives in ERNEST BORGNINE ON THE BUS and GIRLS AT THE CARNIVAL

These two very ‘90s time capsule documentaries help me escape my own cinejerk head and appreciate this big blue marble called Earth a teensy bit more. Bless you, Ernest Borgnine and the mysterious home video Carnival Girls for melting my cynicism with new outlooks on life!

Ernest Borgnine on the Bus

Rating: 🚌🚌🚌🚌🚌
[WATCH HERE]

"The key to a long life is going out there and having fun.  Believe me!" —Ernest Borgnine

If I ever slide especially down and out depressive, I like to bask in the most zen video tape in my collection, Ernest Borgnine on the Bus, and ask WWEBD? This documentary from Heavy Metal Parking Lot director Jeff Krulik follows Hollywood legend Ernest Borgnine (The Wild Bunch, Spongebob Squarepants) as he drives a megabus called the Sunbum around Middle America. 

He weaves tall old timer tales about winning the Oscar® for Marty, losing a bet to Jerry Lewis, eating beans through The Devil’s Rain monster makeup, and begging Lee Marvin to quit smoking while cruising highways and visiting tourist traps like a shoe factory (which he’s welcomed back to) and Budweiser headquarters.  Ernie’s humble posi outlook feels like a warm blanket for the soul. He’s amazed by everything life has to offer and sees each day as a new adventure. He even drains septic waste from the Sunbum with a smile!

I wish I shared the same wide-eyed wonder and joie de vivre as Ernie B! If anything, On the Bus makes me realize even little things like a Dairy Queen cone or a parrot who plays dead or a cold beer "that's not milk" or chatting with a restauranteur or a "Whoomp There It Is!” hip hop Looney Tunes t-shirt can brighten the most turgid day. Sometimes we get so caught up in bad thoughts or the declining state of the planet or the impossible Sisyphean late capitalist scramble we can miss simple pleasures. If the grind gives you tunnel vision, slow down and savor what this world the has to offer.

 As Ernie says, “This country is what ya pay taxes for, so ya might as well enjoy it!"

Girls at the Carnival

Rating: 📹📹📹📹📹
[WATCH HERE]

"Let's rewind the tape and look at ourselves." 

This excavated teen girl camcorder POV from Nowheresville, Ohio feels like some time capsule alien transmission capturing fly '90s fashions, kung fu kids, arcade games with titles like "Spinal Breakers," drunk dirtstache tweens, ferris wheel detritus, boy crush confessions, and late-night diner hangouts. It's like the floating astronaut body cam from On the Silver Globe waded into the Rust Belt and captured a specific period, place, and alterna nose ring girl perspective in some mixed-up anthropological study. Watching Girls at the Carnival feels freeing and revelatory, like slipping on a mask and seeing the world through a new pair of eyes.

According to YouTube® uploader Derek Erdman who discovered the tape, “In 1997 I moved to Chicago with my girlfriend. Soon after I found myself home sick with the flu and rifled through her VHS collection for something to watch. It was then I came upon Girls at the Carnival. Really, it's just a tape that she mistakenly took from an old college roommate, but ultimately it's a sneak peek into growing up in small town Ohio. I believe it was filmed in Canal Fulton, Ohio in 1993. I once saw one of the main characters at a bar in Kent, Ohio and told her that a group of friends and I had watched the tape well over 100 times, she didn't seem to care but also suggested that I do better things with my spare time.”

A found footage masterpiece!