reggie Blog

Not as funny or touching as it wants to be

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Who Loves the Sun (2006)

I saw this one at the AFI Dallas festival. Most of the audience, including my wife, enjoyed this comedy-drama, but I didn't. It stars Lucas Haas (Brick, Alpha Dog), Molly Parker (Kissed, The Five Senses, Hollywoodland) and Adam Scott (First Snow, Art School Confidential). The director is Matt Bissonnette, who's married to Molly Parker. All three actors do a fine job in this movie about 3 friends, the marriage of two of them and infidelity involving the third. It all takes place at a lake house and it looks wonderful. The film wants to treat its subject as a comedy first and then a drama, and I thought it needed to be the other way around.

Posted Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:13 PM by reggie | with 0 comments

Some funny bits, it's OK

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The Proper Care and Feeding of an American Messiah (2006)

The making of this film was the subject of a class at Baylor University in Waco. This probably would have been a great class to be part of and the film looks very good for a school project. Unfortunately, I don't think there was a great film to be made from this script. There were some very funny bits, but just not enough of them to stretch out for a whole movie. It's a mockumentary about a man who thinks he's a messiah. Not THE Messiah, he thinks he's just here for the residents of his home town.

The art direction added some funny touches. The characters ate from packages labeled Generic Cheese Snacks and Vomit Plopps. I liked the Warhol-styled Jesus poster on the messiah's wall- it was like the four different-colored Marilyns.

The director, a professor at Baylor, was at the screening and mentioned that the relationship between the messiah and his brother is similar to that of the main characters in American Movie, a real documentary and a better film that this one.

Posted Sunday, March 25, 2007 1:08 PM by reggie | with 0 comments