I get the feeling that the only person who wrote a review of this film that knew the slightest bit about making a film is Ron Emerson. (We know he does, since he was in this. Good on him for supporting the project.)
YES: This has several spotty bits of audio and the occasional unintentional audio ruffle or camera bounce. YES: It's pretty short on plot. YES: The acting isn't always "perfect," though in some places, it's better than in a ton of movies that came out this year with budgets 1000 times larger. SURE: The costumes, make-up, props, and colour grading are a little thin. FINE. It has a few holes in it.
All of that aside, it is quite an achievement, considering the budget. There are households that are getting excited to go spend more money on a pair of crappy, shiny, boring, new iPhones this year. If their estimated budget is even close to accurate, they did alright with it. Really. Their $2,100 budget is the same as John Waters' "Mondo Trasho." Is it as "good" and "entertaining" a film as "Mondo Trasho?" Maybe not. But it shows a ton of potential. $2,100 went a bit further back in 1969, and perhaps a lot of the crew on that film had a bit more experience or "vision."
The fact that they finished this production says a lot right there. A guerilla filmmaker just starting out could learn a ton from this film, as I'm sure everyone who worked on it did. I would definitely watch what they do next. Anyone with a budget so small should be so lucky with their results. At the end of the day, a lot of people spent their time and money on a couch, playing arcade games that are lamer than this film, on a wee, handheld rectangle, while this cast and crew went out and made a film. It's not a "great" film, sure. But, their next one could be, with a little more time put into the script and editing, a tighter pre-production, and maybe a slight hike in the budget.
I'm sure that next time, they'll do better. And that's definitely enough for me, from a crew dedicated enough to actually finish and release a film. It's not for everyone, sure. While not as polished, I'd say it couldn't be any worse than Zemeckis' past 6 films put together, and if you want that "polish" on your movies for your sit-around time, go waste your time on another soulless Zemeckis or Spielberg cartoon.
I gave this 5 stars. And it earned every one of them. While, Zemeckis spent millions of dollars making "Marwen" and "Witches," a pair of paper tigers whose productions did little more than waste time, talent, and resources on a grander scale. If it's not "fair" to compare the productions -- which may relatively be true -- I put this film on yesterday, after another indie low/no budget movie (to remain nameless here) that was less satisfying and showed less potential. Maybe that other crew had a bigger budget and had attended a few more film classes, but, while that film's acting and sound were cleaner, it had a more muddled plot, annoying colour grading, less "heart," horrible pacing, said less, and even obviously had (important) shots missing, as though the director had just forgotten to point a camera at the film's centerpiece, which was, confusingly, simply never shown... And the budget for that film was over 10 grand.
A little rewrite and a little more time in post-production might have bumped this up an easy few stars, for me. But they did a good job. As worth a watch as over 2/3 of what came out in 2020.
