''Woodpecker'' is a 2008

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

directed by

Alex Karpovsky Alexander Karpovsky (born September 23, 1975)Rick PorterAlex Karpovsky - Apple TV ''Apple TV'' is an American director, actor, screenwriter, producer and film editor. He is best known for playing Ray Ploshansky on the HBO comedy-drama series ''Gi ...

and starring Jon Hyrns. The film follows Hyrns and his cohort, Wesley Yang, as they obsessively search the

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

bayou In usage in the Southern United States, a bayou () is a body of water typically found in a flat, low-lying area. It may refer to an extremely slow-moving stream, river (often with a poorly defined shoreline), marshy lake, wetland, or creek. They ...

for proof that

ivory-billed woodpecker The ivory-billed woodpecker (''Campephilus principalis'') is a possibly extinct woodpecker that is native to the bottomland hardwood forests and temperate coniferous forests of the Southern United States and Cuba. Habitat destruction and hunting ...

is in fact not extinct. ''Woodpecker'' is filmed in a

docufiction Docufiction (or docu-fiction) is the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction, this term often meaning narrative film. It is a film genre which attempts to capture reality such as it is (as direct cinema or cinéma vérité) and ...

style, set in the small Arkansas town of

Brinkley Brinkley may refer to: People * Brinkley (surname) Places * Brinkley, Arkansas, USA * Brinkley, Nottinghamshire, England * Brinkley, Cambridgeshire, England Fictional places * Brinkley Court The following is a list of recurring or notable fict ...

. It incorporates faux-interviews with Brinkley residents recounting their experiences with the mysterious bird. Hyrns becomes increasingly erratic and comic in his attempts to locate the animal.

Soundtrack

The film’s

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

received positive reviews. The score, composed by

James Lavino James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...

, was performed by

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

bassist

Colin Greenwood Colin Charles Greenwood (born 26 June 1969) is an English musician and the bassist for the rock band Radiohead. Along with bass guitar, Greenwood plays Double bass, upright bass and Electronic musical instrument, electronic instruments. With h ...

and Lee and Tyler Sargent of

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (sometimes abbreviated to CYHSY) is the musical project of American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Alec Ounsworth, active since the early 2000s in and out of Philadelphia. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have rel ...

References

American independent films 2008 films 2008 comedy films American comedy films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-US-film-stub