Burnt Toast
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Timothy Racca Morrish
Genres: documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
On a Vermont mountaintop, Galen Paul Dively III sells novelty toasters for a living. The doc traces his strange little empire from Grateful Dead tie-dye to internet-era folk hero, with all the warmth and weirdness that implies.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Novelty toasters, a mountain hippie, and zero condescension — this is the kind of regional weirdness most docs would either skip or smirk at. I'll take the toaster guy over another founder profile any day.
A novelty-toaster business as serious American subject — Morrish takes vocational eccentricity with the Vernon, Florida warmth of Les Blank. The genre is portrait, and it's done with affection.
A portrait of a Vermont mountaintop hippie running a one-man novelty-toaster empire — treating vocational eccentricity as serious American subject is exactly the right reverence. Doc warmth without condescension is the craft.