American movie [NTSC]

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, “American Movie” is a hilarious, engrossing portrait of wannabe filmmaker Mark Borchardt. The highly vocal, quirky, 30-year-old Mark lives at home with his parents in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, getting by on a few odd jobs like newspaper delivery and shovelling snow whilst his 3 kids live with his ex-wife. Mark’s big dream, however, is to be an American filmmaker. A horror film buff, he has been making no-budget gore flicks on 8mm since an early age, all of which starred his friends and some of which include sequels that run up to the fourth instalment. Not much has changed: Mark is still enlisting the help of friends and family to make creepy, gore-filled, horror films. Filmmakers Chris Smith and Sarah Price follow Mark on a two-year journey as he goes from commencing and then aborting plans for his feature project “Northwestern” to completing what he hopes will be his breakthrough film, “Coven”, a 30-minute no-budget horror. The gap between Mark’s suburban reality and his dream is all too obvious, and the filmmakers milk a lot of laughs from his ‘loser’ existence: his drugged out friend, Mike; his relationship with Uncle Bill, a senile old man from whom he derives financing; his home life; his eccentric personality; the ‘nobodies’ who help him on his film and so on. But the documentary also shows a great deal of compassion for Mark and recognition of both his earnestness to make films and the many hurdles and obstacles this dream involves. Above all, “American Movie” is a testament to the contemporary cultural phenomenon specific to the MTV generation: the desire to be rid of a dreaded anonymous suburban existence and to be famous, to be somebody, if just for one day.