American Movie . Tucson Weekly . 01-31-00

American Movie

DIRECTED BY: Chris Smith

REVIEWED: 01-31-00

I must admit to witnessing less than half of American Movie's genius. After 45 minutes, I had the urge to saw off my head with a rusty power tool, leading a kinder soul to quickly escort me from the building. Much of the rest of the scant audience was laughing (or making choking noises of some kind). American Movie won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance, which is a good thing. If it hadn't, everyone would swear it was a brilliantly sarcastic mockumentary about a film weenie in Wisconsin who pulls all stops -- like dropping out of high school, living at home and using moronic tactics of delusion and confusion -- to convince his pathetic friends and family members he's going to make the great American movie. Director Chris Smith captures it all in excruciating detail -- the hope, the impossibility, the lives we never want to live. His low-budget exercise in schadenfreude has a particular kind of audience: one that is unflinching, and/or those sheltered from prior knowledge that the Mark Borschardts of the world indeed exist, like a silent, standing army ready to ambush you and insist you watch their films at festivals, parties and premieres; or at the very least, that you listen, trapped, while they explain said movies to death. The marketing says this is high comedy; I say it's horror.

--Mari Wadsworth

Full Length Reviews
American Movie
American Movie

Other Films by Chris Smith
American Job

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