American Movie Review

My cousin Bob thought it would be a fun idea if I did some reviews. Coincedentally, I happened to agree with him. So he gives me something to review and I review it and post it on my blog. If you'd like to know more about the process, ask me (or him), or see my blog post entitled "Think About It" posted on 12/12/09. Here is my review. Sorry it's so long.

My cousin suggested that my first review be about movie called American Movie. He described the movie as, “a documentary about a guy who lives at home with his parents in Wisconsin and makes horror movies” (I don’t know how to cite this… Bob wrote it). The first thing that I noticed was that it was a documentary. I’m not really a documentary kind of guy; I like more mainstream high gross films. I typically watch top box office films like Indiana Jones or Pirates of the Caribbean, so I wasn’t very excited about the movie. The next thing that I noticed was that the guy was from Wisconsin. Since I’m fairly self centered, I thought my cousin chose this movie because the guy lived in Wisconsin and I go to school in Wisconsin. The last thing that I took from the one sentence I knew about the movie was that the guy lived with his parents and made horror movies. At this point in time, I guessed he was a total loser. This all went through my head in the short time it took me to read what Bob had told about the film.

The next thing I thought was that I had to take this all with a grain of salt. Knowing Bob, I knew he had a fairly sophisticated and educated tasted in movies. I know he’s seen a lot more movies than I have, and I think he has seen a lot more non main stream films than I have; so I thought that I shouldn’t be so quick to judge. So I took a step back and tried not to make judgments so quickly. When I went to get the movie I was forced to further evaluate the film. I looked for it in the documentary and horror sections of the store but I couldn’t find it. I had to get help finding it and it turned out to be in the comedy section of the store. This completely rearranged what I thought and helped me to have some hope for the movie (I don’t like documentaries but I do like comedies).

With this basic preconception I began to watch the movie. In the first couple of seconds, I had already come to think of the main character, Mark Borchardt, as a total loser and geek. As the film progressed, I realized that to a certain extent, I was right, but at the same time I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. My view of Mark constantly changed throughout the entire film. He went from a burnout loser to a excited and motivated filmmaker to a army renegade to a high school dropout druggie to a former druggie to a total hick rube to a charismatic motivated filmmaker again. He was basically a horse of a different color, constantly changing so that you could never fully form a picture of who he actually was, but if you looked hard enough, you could see exactly what you were looking for, you saw him as who you wanted him to be. For me, that turned out to be a great guy. He is the protagonist and I personally wanted him to win in the end and I was able to see him as a winner because of his personality, no matter what the outcome of the movie.

Knowing this, I can assure you this movie isn’t for everybody. In my opinion, American Movie is the perfect movie for community college students who have an education, a job, and their dreams to juggle all at the same time who just decided to take a night to themselves to relax and remember why and aspiring independent film makers. However it isn’t exclusive to them, a lot of people would enjoy seeing this.Here’s the kicker of the entire thing, my favorite part of the movie was the back and forth between Mark and his uncle, Bill Borchardt. Bill was the financial backing for Mark’s movie, but the entire time he was pessimistic about what would come of the movie and his money. It plays great contrast to Mark who was persistent in completing his movie, no matter what mood he was in (Mark wasn’t always happy, but he drove himself, no matter what his mood was, to finish his film and make it great). The back and forth banter between the two of them is the cherry on top of the ice cream if you ask me. It’s great because Mark brings such energy and Bill drains the energy of a room, but makes you laugh at the same time, and Mark is the perfect person to fit with Bill. Also, the way they’re put together, it just makes me think the entire time, don’t die Bill, don’t die (Bill looks really really old). The other thing that began to creep up in my mind while I was watching the movie was that I would like to see the final product. The father into the movie I got, the more I thought to myself, I’d like to see Coven (the name of one of Mark’s movies, pronounced cove-(rhymes with love)-en). I really want to buy Coven now and watch it right away. So if you do decide to watch American Movie, remember, it’s better than the average documentary, look for the back and forth between Bill and Mark, and prepare yourself and buy Coven because you’re going to want to see that immediately afterwards, plus you’ll be helping the cause (Mark Borchardt).