Filming for an indie picture called Firecracker recently finished. I would never have discovered this film if it were not for the presence of Mike Patton in the lead role. Patton, the former frontman for Faith No More and Mr. Bungle and current singer of Tomahawk, has been a prominent figure in music for the past 15 years, and this role marks his feature film debut.
The General thinks Mike Patton is a musical genius. His contribution to Faith No More is sometimes overrated, denying the prodigious talents of his bandmates; however, before Patton Faith No More was a good band, but after Patton FNM was great, easily the best band of the 1990s. Their LP Angel Dust stands as the most daring and excellent hard rock album of that decade.
Patton has always embodied the avant-gardist spirit, choosing experimental collaborations over bankable projects at almost every stage of his career. It's almost a shame, really, that he hasn't embraced the fame and fortune that could be his if he wanted it, because then he would be better known to the world. As it is, he is quite well known and admired worldwide; however, a crossover moment such as the FNM hit "Epic" offered would have guaranteed a significantly larger audience for his tremendous talents. Instead, and luckily, FNM followed up The Real Thing, their most successful album, with Angel Dust, their most experimental and muscially successful. Kerrang! magazine voted Angel Dust "the most influential album of all time."
For more about Patton's career, see his interview with The Onion AV and Caca Volante, a website that is updated regularly. If you want to listen to an all-Patton-all-the-time radio station, check out Bungles to Fantomas.
What's particularly interesting about Patton's budding acting career is the fact that so much of his music was heavily influenced by films. More on this later. For now, here's the plot synopsis from the Firecracker website:
FIRECRACKER is a bold and shocking true-to-life tale of murder in small town Kansas. Set against the stark beauty of Middle America, this astonishing story of abuse, suffering and denial reveals dreams of escape. The inevitable confrontation unleashes the truth concealed behind the pleasant façade of small-town U.S.A.
Meek, reclusive and talented Jimmy is emotionally imprisoned by his abusive, alcoholic older brother David – and fanatically religious mother Eleanor. With evil lurking in the shadows, the setting sun gives way to the blue of evening and Jimmy finds escape in the neon glow of a traveling sideshow carnival. Unlike its drab, depressing daytime reality, the carnival becomes a nightly glittering solitaire on the prairie, beckoning all around to its illusions and make-believe. With a guise of red satin and the lure of a heavenly voice, Sandra, billed as an “oddity of nature,” is the carnival’s premier attraction. Yearning for a way out, Jimmy befriends Sandra, unaware that her imprisonment and degradation, at the hands of Frank, the carnival owner, mirror his own. Sandra, taken by his innocence, finds her own inner strength and suppressed dreams. When David disappears, the metaphorical white-picket fences collapse, leaving raw emotions exposed to the spark of truth.
Throughout it all Police Chief Ed searches for truth, uncovering bits of evidence suggesting deceit, abuse, murder and cover-up. As her investigation leads her closer to the truth, the lives of those involved become lit fuses – until they explode, one-by-one, in a dramatic and harrowing conclusion.
FIRECRACKER pulls no punches nor hides from the ugliness that mars reality. It also reveals in its imagery a vividness and majesty that transcends mere mortality, exploding the myth of Middle America’s sanctity and piety, while opening the door to atonement.
1:30:13 AM 
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