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Reviews
American Movie (1999)
A delightful and hilarious documentary.
Chris Smith's American Movie is an insightful examination of the American dream. The movie focuses around Mark Borchardt, an independent film maker from Wisconsin. Mark has dreamed of becoming a great writer and director since he was a teenager and had an out of focus hi8 camera. The movie follows Mark through his attempt to make his dream feature film, Northwestern. There are a number of hilarious scenes in the film as Mark goes through pre-production of Northwestern and later his short film Coven (pronounced co-ven, the correct pronunciation, Mark says "Sounds too much like oven,") which he plans to use to raise money to complete Northwestern. This film's insight and humor is on par with Roger and Me, Michael Moore's great film. I first viewed it at a chaotic Sundance Film Festival screening that brought out the spirit of the movie- a giant air duct fell from the ceiling at the beginning of the movie, hit seven people and caused a twenty-five minute delay; half way through the film the sound started fluttering and the projector had to be stopped to fix it, and in the last twenty minutes the projector stopped and the film burned up. Despite the delays, the audience stayed through the movie and gave it a standing ovation. American Movie also won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the end of the festival. I highly recommend this fine film, worth sitting through any hellish screening.
If Lucy Fell (1996)
If Lucy fell and suffered brain damage, she could still make a better movie.
I saw this movie on cable, so I can't ask for my money back. However, I would like that time of my life back. If Lucy Fell attempts to be an insightful dialogue film, but fails due to lack of insight and any knowledge of how people talk and recognition to any hint of human intelligence. Maybe people talking about spitting in each other's mouths could be slightly funny if the writer had any talent or could sense any direction, but no. Evaluating the performances is pointless, since any actor working with this material is obviously in too much pain to develop a character. Save your money and life, avoid this movie at all costs!