Navbar

December 22, 2015

Movie Review: Auteur (2013)

Oh, fake documentary films. Stop it. Just stop. You and your ‘found footage’ asshole cousin need to go spend time in a sanitarium and get clean until you can be real movies again.

Ugh.

Auteur introduces us to Jack Humphreys, a doughy genteel film maker who just hasn’t been able to break into the movie business. But he has a genius idea. If he can track down the missing horror director, Charlie Buckwall, and tell his story, the high brass in Hollywood won’t be able to ignore him anymore and will give him a fantastic movie deal!

Poor naive bastard.

Who the hell is Charlie Buckwall? Well, I’m so glad you asked. Charlie Buckwall is an infamous horror director. And his last film, Demonic, promised to be a giant success. But for some odd reason, before the movie could be released, he disappeared with the only copy, basically screwing over the entire crew, cast, production company, movie house, etc. etc. etc.


Jack begins his quest by interviewing a handful of former cast and crew. By the time he does actually track down the reclusive director, it’s rather obvious that something went terribly wrong on the set of Demonic. If Jack can just get his hands on the film and watch it, perhaps he can help solve the mystery of Charlie’s paranoia and disappearance. 

I can sum up this movie in three words: So. Fucking. Boring.

One does not simply...suck at making movies.

I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who is tired of the mockumentary; the ‘cursed’ or ‘jinxed’ movie sets; the whole fucking overdone and tired trope of ‘oh this movie was about demon possession and so weird that all these strange accidents and deaths happened and isn’t that odd but I’m sure it’s all nothing but coincidence’. 

So it kind of goes without saying (oh, but I will) that the writing is lackluster and completely unoriginal. (LITTLE SPOILER HERE) Movie about demon possession involved a real spell to really possess the lead actress with a real demon because authenticity? Is this...is this a fucking joke? How about instead of putting in a 5 minute rant about the unoriginal soul of Hollywood and its remakes, you write an original story yourselves, ass hats.

The acting was mostly bad. Tom Sizemore, as himself, was probably the best. Ian Hutton, who played Buckwall, was next but not a close second. More like a few city blocks away but still in the same neighborhood. Everyone else seemed like they were trying too hard.

Satan's Love Dolls - now with life-like vagina dentata.

Editing and lighting was fine but there were a few shots thrown in there that felt like they wanted to be artsy - over head city shots that looked rather gritty; the inside of a VCR as it loads a tape. You know, hipster bullshit. But mostly the look and feel of the film was consistent. And I did actually enjoy the music. The main menu, in particular, had some nice atmospheric music that didn’t bug me as I left it there and finished typing up my notes.

Those few good elements are not worth the rest of this disaster. There are a lot of demon possession/documentary/reality movies out there that have been done better so find one of those and skip this one.


1 Hatchet


No comments:

Post a Comment