Spoilers like to listen to some jazz.

I feel that Fantasia has selective niche subgenres. In the selection, there’s always an anime adaptation, a time traveling plot, a horror comedy and, unmistakably, the bizarre WTF film. To quote David Lynch, “It makes me uncomfortable to talk about meanings and things. It’s better not to know so much about what things mean”. So, let’s embrace the chaos and see what it brings.

Sour Minnows (2026) was written and directed by Harrison Atkins. Ricky (David Brown) and Tepper (Chase Williamson) are casually walking with groceries down a street when they meet a bunch of people lying down and literally licking the pavement. The sound of their mouths is played up. From here and on, all reality and logic goes out the window. Ricky finds himself hearing and seeing things that are not there and losing track of time and events. Ricky sets up to see a film with Tepper while he argues they’ve already seen it. Ricky’s girlfriend Aura (Suzanna Son) finds him sleeping in his car in front of her house, but later on Aura doesn’t recall the event.

I can’t help but think that all scenes could be rearranged to any nonsensical narrative. It is purely chaotic for almost the sake of being so until some sort of intent is introduced later. What seems to work is the characters do exhibit enough of an engaging personality for the audience to care. I do like that some of the plot does have circular call backs to previous scenes from a different point of view (no, it’s not time travel). But it’s very hard to determine if we had a motive to start this trip.

Perhaps recommended for the lovers of chaos out there with reservations. If you want something explained, this one’s not for you. If you want to figure it out, that’s not going to happen. Only worth a watch if you’re willing to drop finding not only reason and consequence but also story and conclusion. In the end, it felt like it lacked a little more jazz to spice it up.

That will do for now.