GOLDMAN v SILVERMAN
2020 · 7m · USA
Directed by Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie
Tones: darkly comic, humorous, provocative
Rod Goldman and Al Silverman are street performers working the tourist trap of Times Square. Goldman gets no respect; Silverman is the first to make sure of that.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
The Safdies made Adam Sandler a Times Square joke-target and somehow it's one of the most quietly devastating comedies they've made. Short, deadpan, wrong in all the right ways.
The Safdies' loosest, sketchiest mode — Sandler clowned by Benny on a Times Square block, all texture and zero stakes. Slighter than their feature work by design, but as a study in what their grammar looks like compressed to seven minutes, it's irresistible.
The Safdies in sketch mode with Sandler getting absolutely clowned by Benny in Times Square — six minutes, handheld, Ronald Bronstein on sound, and you can feel the brothers playing. A delicious palate cleanser between feature spirals.