7 Year Zigzag

An audacious hybrid of film, poetry, cabaret and "living animation" that sounds like the kind of goofy, experimental indulgence you should cross the street to avoid. But writer-musician-actor-director Richard Green actually makes the mix sing, and the film is genuinely absorbing. Green plays two roles, the "storyteller" and Nick, a character in one of two unmade films-within-the-film. As the storyteller, he narrates the semi-autobiographical story of an aspiring writer-musician's pursuit of his dream: Making an allegorical movie called "The Doomsayer." The narration is all in verse whose Dr. Suess-style rhythms and hep-cat slang ought to clash miserably, but Green's ...