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American Movie
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Release
Date: July 7th 2000
Distributor: Sony
Certificate: 15
Starring: Mark Borchardt, Tom Schimmels,
Monica Borchardt, Alex Borchardt, Chris Borchardt
Director: Chris
Smith
Running Time:
104
mins
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| After
the unprecedented success of the 'Blair Witch Project', a film that managed
to topple multi-million dollar blockbusters, it suddenly became apparent
to many people, including filmmakers, that it really isn't always the highly
paid, big-name stars, or expensive special effects which makes a good picture
- and 'American Movie' certainly doesn't have any of these factors. The
characters are all real, from the obnoxious to the surreal; these are people
so eccentric that they are too stereotypical and bizarre to have been thought
up. The film itself is in fact a two-year documentary without a script.
Yet this movie contains real-life - and more often than not, is genuinely
funnier and more touching than rehearsed tragi-comedies are on film.
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| The
movie charters an authentic Wayne's World, Mike Myers-like individual named
Mark Borchardt who is trying to realise his childhood ambition of becoming
a filmmaker, but first needs to sell 3000 copies of his recently resurrected,
yet incomplete, black and white horror film, 'Coven', in order to finance
his latest project 'Northwestern' - a semi-autobiographical production.
During this spontaneous saga, Chris Smith who caught the entire documentary
on camera, reveals to the audience a host of characters, such as Borchardt's
charmingly obtuse friend Schank (completing the Wayne and Garth duo), who
has given up his drug addition to fund his scratch-card dependency, as well
as his peculiar Uncle Bill - an 82 year-old who to all intents and purposes
possesses a substantial amount of money, yet never-the-less lives in a trailer
park. Watching this Uncle Bill bitterly part with his money at the expense
of getting Producer's credit on the film Borchardt wants to finance, imparts
only a fleeting moment of the humor this film has to offer, but also tackles
the emotive struggle that Borchardt must endure to attain his ageing aspiration
(it's taken him 30 years to get this far). |
| At times,
this is a film that delivers unwitting performances that come across as
even better than one could expect from a perfectly scripted film, for this
is life in the raw and more natural than any scriptwriter could ever hope
to create. Smith's talent as a documentarian reveals an invigorating lack
of the cynical stigma often attached to the cruel realism of the American
Dream, as his encapsulation of Borchardt's life presents poignancy which
the audience will most probably encounter as they find themselves wishing
him to succeed in his plight. This will be a film that will elevate a film
star, as well as a director, to be idolised by independent filmmakers and
enjoyed by benevolent audiences alike. |
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