You know that moment when you're around people who are trying to be more clever than they actually are? Trying to appear witty and edgy and oh, so avant guard? The type of person who puts a book by Joseph Campbell next to something by Lynda Barry on the coffee table because they want to be seen as hip intellectuals, edgy social commentators on the human condition? The type of person who wears mis-matched socks because they refuse to conform to convention? The type that wants you to acknowledge their nonconformity and free, independent spirit. The type who has business cards made up that say "Artist"?
That's what this movie felt like. My wife and daughter and I watched this through cable streaming (there's $8 I'll never see again) because it looked a quirky, independent comedy, and we love quirky independent comedies. And because it had Nick Offerman in it. Well...it was probably independent, but it wasn't quirky or a comedy. And I'm horrified that Hollywood may be right about greenlighting movies based solely on genre and name-brand actors, because, like I said, they have my $8.
First, the good: Alex Ross Perry as the Pizza and Ice Cream store's first customer was wonderful.Stood out from the crowd and as far as I was concerned was the only redeemable moment in the film. He's a good actor and since he was nominated for a John Cassevetes award (For a different film) this year, we'll probably get to see more of him.
That's it. About 1 1/2 minutes. The rest was too busy trying to be clever and witty and charming and edgy to be any of those. The screenplay was banal, the casting was god-awful (just goes to show how important casting is), and Shawn Price Williams's cinematography was really bad - full of amateurish mistakes. I thought the manic zooming in Jeff, Who Lives at Home was bad, but the overexposed shots in this film were worse. Did not serve the story at all and seemed to have no rationale other than an impulsive need to seem arty at random places. I'd swear that once Williams opened the iris in the middle of a shot. No reason. Just did it.
I love Offerman. I love Alex Ross Perry. Everything else...no. Can't recommend it. I can't lay out all the lame, pretentious plot problems because they are spoilers (there's a joke there somewhere), but it reads like a film that had huge problems getting finished and was shot largely without a script - constructing story as they went.
That's what this movie felt like. My wife and daughter and I watched this through cable streaming (there's $8 I'll never see again) because it looked a quirky, independent comedy, and we love quirky independent comedies. And because it had Nick Offerman in it. Well...it was probably independent, but it wasn't quirky or a comedy. And I'm horrified that Hollywood may be right about greenlighting movies based solely on genre and name-brand actors, because, like I said, they have my $8.
First, the good: Alex Ross Perry as the Pizza and Ice Cream store's first customer was wonderful.Stood out from the crowd and as far as I was concerned was the only redeemable moment in the film. He's a good actor and since he was nominated for a John Cassevetes award (For a different film) this year, we'll probably get to see more of him.
That's it. About 1 1/2 minutes. The rest was too busy trying to be clever and witty and charming and edgy to be any of those. The screenplay was banal, the casting was god-awful (just goes to show how important casting is), and Shawn Price Williams's cinematography was really bad - full of amateurish mistakes. I thought the manic zooming in Jeff, Who Lives at Home was bad, but the overexposed shots in this film were worse. Did not serve the story at all and seemed to have no rationale other than an impulsive need to seem arty at random places. I'd swear that once Williams opened the iris in the middle of a shot. No reason. Just did it.
I love Offerman. I love Alex Ross Perry. Everything else...no. Can't recommend it. I can't lay out all the lame, pretentious plot problems because they are spoilers (there's a joke there somewhere), but it reads like a film that had huge problems getting finished and was shot largely without a script - constructing story as they went.