My friend's beans (1985)

In the Salinas Valley in and around World War I, Cal Trask feels he must compete against overwhelming odds with his brother for the love of their father. Cal is frustrated at every turn, from his reaction to the war, how to get ahead in business and in life, and how to relate to his estranged mother.

Two couples go on a boating holiday together, and run into some strange people and events.

W.C.Fields enters the Warmer Bros. Studio. Beans tries to drive in, but the guard throws him and his car against a tree. Charlie Chaplin drives in, followed by Oliver Hardy on foot - but we see that it's really Beans in disguise. Oliver Owl is directing a picture; Beans sneaks onto the stage. He's watching from a catwalk when someone knocks him off, into the middle of the scene. Beans is thrown off the set, right into the set of a Frankenstein movie. He accidentally brings the robotic monster to life, and it crashes into the original studio, eating the camera. Beans tries to stop the monster, but is sent flying. He lands against a wind machine. which chops up the monster.

Bottleneck is an experimental video which is, in part, a reflection on borders. Using a jar of sprouting Mung beans as a metaphor it takes into consideration contemporary manifestations of national borders as they relate to regional and international growth and movement. This video emerges from questions such as: Who gains access? How does water transform a space and its borders? Who can move freely and access resources? What moves in and out of a given space and the boundaries that attempt to demarcate and contain it?