The Auteur Theory (1999)

At an absurdly self-indulgent student film festival, the directors of the (mostly terrible) short films start getting killed off one by one and a budding British documentary filmmaker decides to investigate.

Director:

Evan Oppenheimer

Writer:

Evan Oppenheimer

Stars:

Alan Cox, Sean Gunn, Daniel Cantor

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alan Cox	...	George Sand
Sean Gunn	...	Tori York
Daniel Cantor	...	Elliot Lewis
Armin Shimerman	...	Detective Blank
Dana Lee	...	Arthur Wong
Garrett Wang	...	Mike Wong / God
Natasha Lyonne	...	Rosemary Olson - Finalist
Angeline Ball	...	Carmela Cicero Maresca - Finalist
Rachel True	...	Sasha Swann - Finalist
Jit Sarkar	...	Asmali Jawad - Finalist
Michael Benyaer	...	Spike Levy - Finalist
J.P. Manoux	...	The Unknown Filmmaker / Mike Dong
Ana María Caso	...	Maria Hernandez
Alain Benatar	...	William Butler
Luigi Amodeo	...	Paradiso Marcopoli

Storyline

At an absurdly self-indulgent student film festival, the directors of the (mostly terrible) short films start getting killed off one by one and a budding British documentary filmmaker decides to investigate.

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Plot Keywords:

student film | mockumentary | film school | satire | critic | 

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Taglines:

They all wanted final cut -- until they got it

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Genres:

Comedy

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

3 November 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mortelle théorie

Box Office

Budget:

$70,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Theoretical Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

77 min 79 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Detective Blank: Stop calling me elephant!

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Crazy Credits

Dinosaurs -- Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops Aussies Oblivious to the Fall of Paris -- Evan Oppenheimer, Michael Laudrup Most Background Appearances, Male -- Martin Schepelern Most Background Appearances, Female -- Lia Levenson

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Connections

Spoofs The Seventh Seal (1957)

User Reviews

can't say I liked it...

I just watched this movie on the The Movie Channel about an hour ago, and frankly, I must say that I am shocked to see that the 18 people who voted for it here averaged a 7.0 in their ratings of it. The plot is already explained here so I won't go into it, but I really must voice that I thought this was a truly awful movie. I understand that that may be "part of the point", the "in" joke on independent filmmaking, but what I viewed was a thoroughly - and at times, painfully - bad film. The art of satire is to mirror life while leaving an artist's touch (of opinion); however, if this is dir. Evan Oppenheimer's genuine take on indie films, he is missing something big. The basic idea for "The Auteur Theory" really isn't bad, but the script and acting are so genuinely awful that they really make it impossible for this film to convey itself as any kind of a legitimate satire. Maybe I'm just missing something, I don't know, or perhaps I don't know enough about the inner circles of independent film-making to be able to see how this film succeeds; but if that is the case, then what are we supposed to think of a film so "smart" that its audience doesn't even get it?

Or maybe, this was simply a bad film by a bad director who failed to convey his criticisms, let alone cast them as satire. If this is the case, then bam!, you hit the mark Oppenheimer.