Zia Movies

Filmmaker Frank Novak debuts with this wild satire about a white trash marriage that's coming apart at the seams. Fanatical toy collector Don (Bob Mills) and his Italian-born wife Donatella (Petra Westen) are so estranged from one another that they use their only child Don, Jr. (Andrew Eichner) as a go-between. The warring couple both still live in their rundown North Hollywood bungalow, even though their divorce court date is in only two weeks. Donatella is too afraid of losing all of her belongings to move out, while Don is using every trick in the book to drive her out. When he learns that Donatella, who works as a forklift operator, has the hots for female company manager Marion (Tracey Adams), Don goes berserk. He builds a wall clean through the middle of the house with a little doggy-door so that Don, Jr. can shuttle between the two halves. As the film progresses, the tranquility of Donatella and Marion's half contrasts sharply with the high-school basement party atmosphere of Don's, which is populated with an increasingly motley array of drug-addled toy collectors and general freaks. His loser brother-in-law Chuck (Zia) agrees to act as a house security guard in exchange for being allowed to live in Don's car with his crack-addict girlfriend Tiffany (Maeve Kerrigan). Meanwhile, men's rights advocate and gun nut Joe (Al Schuermann) arms Don with guns and eventually a rocket launcher -- after which things get really out of control. This film won the Grand Prize at the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

A boy learns to get by on his wits and comes to depend on the kindness of (relative) strangers in this independent drama. Jimmy (Brendan Fletcher), whose abusive foster father (Ike Gingrich) likes to call him "Jimmy Zip" (that is, "Jimmy Nothing"), is fascinated with fire and sees no good reason to stay at home where he's not wanted. So Jimmy hits the road and ends up in Hollywood, where he hooks up with a pair of fellow runaway teens, Sheila (Adrienne Frantz) and Snake (Zia). While Jimmy's new friends show him the finer points of scraping up a living on the streets, Rick (Chris Mulkey), a pimp and dope dealer, gives Jimmy a job dealing drugs. While on his way home from a drug buy, Jimmy makes the mistake of getting in an argument with Horace (Robert Gossett), a homeless man with Tourette's syndrome who lives in his car. Horace accidentally ends up with Jimmy's jacket, which has $20,000 of Rick's money inside; when Jimmy realizes what happened, he tries to warn Horace before Rick can get to him, but Horace and Jimmy soon take it on the lam with Rick's money. Horace has artistic ambitions, and with Rick's drug money as a stake, he hopes to create some metal sculptures that he can sell for bigger money, allowing him and Jimmy to support themselves after paying back Rick. Jimmy Zip was shown at the 1999 Hollywood Film Festival, where it won a special prize for best film with a budget under one million dollars. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide