Mule Skinner Blues

A white-trash WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, this documentary about a group of beer-soaked trailer-park denizens trying to make a movie undergoes a fascinating transformation. The film starts as a tediously cute portrait of a grizzled, obsessively cheerful old yakker named Beanie Andrews, then unexpectedly turns into a Greek tragedy full of poetic irony, self-delusion and pained humanity. In May 1997, a New York film crew descended on Mayport, Fla.'s Buckaneer Trailer Park to shoot a video for singer Jim White's song "Book of Angels"; Beanie — a white-haired, beer-bellied local who sells shrimp from an old truck, mows lawns and is convinced that deep down inside he's a pr...