Okay, so like the rest of America, I haven’t been watching this show. I haven't been watching this show partly because Sars told me, "Dude, don't watch that show." So I promise to do the best I can, but if I screw something up, email Couch Baron about it. So as Adrianna Costa says (in that strange halting manner she has where her body dry-heaves at every third word), the five directors from last week await their fate from the public vote, while five more directors will present their films this week, and the remaining five will do absolutely nothing for the second week in a row. Carrie Fisher's face-lift and Garry Marshall borscht-belt are joined this week by David Frankel, who directed not only The Devil Wears Prada, but also two episodes of Entourage and the TV movie about those Pennsylvania mine workers. Eeeeeeee! ...What, not that kind of show? I just figured because it was on FOX...okay, my bad.
We get a rehash of last week in the guise of seeing who the judges and contestants think are in danger of being eliminated tonight. I get the supreme joy of seeing Michael Bay tell someone else, "they're laughing at you and not with you." Hilary and Trever seem to be the popular choices among the filmmakers for who will be going home. Trever, in particular, and from a half-second's worth of footage, takes this criticism remarkably well. Back onstage, Adrianna reveals that Adam, Shalini, and Sam are safe, so hold on to your asses, people: Hilary and Trever are the bottom two. Adrianna then attempts to Seacrest us into thinking she's eliminating one of them right now, but of course we won't find out until the end of the show.
First to show a film tonight is Andrew, who, Adrianna reminds us, gave us "drunken, vomiting aliens" last time. In his video package, he tells us he took time away from planning his wedding to make this movie, and it's the best thing he's ever done. It's called "Polished," and it's about a shlubby, kind of deranged-looking janitor who is constantly ignored, snubbed, and taken for granted by the people at the office building where he works. So he takes his revenge by polishing up the cafeteria floor so slickly that when the stampeding horde arrives for the free burgers he's advertised, they fly fakely across the room and injure themselves. Uh...the end. Carrie's two facial muscles that still move say she liked the underdog aspect and compares it to a silent film. Frankel says it's not Andrew's best film, and more akin to a commercial than a film, and I see that we've adopted the Idol tactic of prompting the audience to boo at any and all criticism, only it's piped in even more fakely here, and I never thought that was possible. Garry thought the theme of revenge was a good one for a comedy, though he didn't like the music. He also wonders where the janitor got all those hamburgers, and while my nagging thought was how he kept everyone out of the caf until lunch, I'm kind of concerned that Garry Marshall and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to nitpicking short films about super-waxed floors.
up is David, the "self-proclaimed nerd." In his video package he tells us he thinks Kenny is his toughest competition, and that his film "Love At First Shot," is, true to his nerdly persona, about how tough it can be to talk to women at first. In the film, this geeky guy is boring the hell out of his date by explaining how a warp drive works. When she excuses herself to powder her nose or possibly arrange a fake-emergency phone call, our geek places a call to an all-business Cupid. There's a whole lot of business to do with Cupid's arrow missing the girl and him trying to go undercover to retrieve it, but in the meantime, he advises Geek to just let the girl talk for once, and when he does, we realize she's secretly a RPG-style geek as well. Aw! Carrie lets loose with this: "If you're going to be derivative, it should be a little more original." Indeed, Carrie. She suggests Cupid could have worn a "diaper." David's like, "Hmmm, yes, maybe." You'd have thought Carrie Fisher of all people would have connected with the story of a girl who had to put up with nerds talking about warp drives all day, but maybe that twist ending lost her? Frankel didn't think it was funny, and found it too disconnected in terms of style, which is about right. He does advance the argument that "ambiguity is the enemy of all filmmaking," and while I think I get what he's saying -- a little more clarity would have helped David immensely -- it still sounds pretty anti-art. Garry found it "beautifully to look at [sic]," but his pacing was terrible. He jokes that the judges could've written a pilot in between the funny moments. Adrianna awkwardly makes it to center stage -- this lady moves like she's constantly Elaine Dancing, it's the most fascinating thing -- and jokes about how Garry said David didn't earn a hug from her this time.
Shira-Lee is , looking like Linda Blair crossed with a crazier-eyed version of Linda Blair. She tells us that her film is about the struggles of getting back into the dating world after having a kid, and she cast her son to play the child in the film. She tells us she thinks Zach is "the one to beat in this competition." Her film is called "Beeline," and her kid? Suuuucks. Cute as a button, though. He plays a kid who (LOUDLY!) asks his single mom over breakfast how many men she's had sex with since she split up with his dad. She won't say, but he's determined to find out. This leads Mom to make a "beeline" (see?) to everyone she's slept with -- a fellow parent, a doorman, ...uh...Lita Ford? -- so she can tell them to clam up when she and the kid are around, so he doesn't catch wise. In the end, all the kid wants is a PlayStation 3, so the Mom gladly buys her child's silence. As all good parents eventually do. Carrie calls the movie "Slut Mom," but endearingly so, if you can believe that. She says to make it as a woman director one needs to be "great" and Shira-Lee was "...very good." I have to say, after all the hubbub about Carrie's word sputterings in weeks, she seems remarkably tight-lipped this week. Frankel seemed to like everything about the film and calls is the best of the night thus far. Garry says you shouldn't let kids smile in your films -- which explains a lot about Raising Helen, if you think about it -- but otherwise he thought the production values were great, and her pacing really showed up the two guys. "Good one for the girls," he condescends, like he's playing his character from A League Of Their Own all of a sudden.
1 2 3 4
is Marty Martin, who has clearly taken up filmmaking in order to fill the void in his life caused by the fact that his parents obviously never loved him since they named him Marty Martin. Marty's being sold as the cocky, full-of-himself contestant, I guess, though he certainly provides enough ammo, bragging about his ambition and telling us how he's not here to make independent film, he's here to make Spielberg films. And I know it's the easy joke, but: cram it, Dawson. His film, "Dance With the Devil," is filmed under an emerald green filter, like we're in night vision or possibly The Matrix. The plot is some choppy version of, like, if you mashed up The Bourne Supremacy and Brick and let Tony Scott direct it. In fact, I know I've seen The Lesser Scott do that "underscore portentious dialogue by subtitling it all off-kilter-like" thing before. Some photogenic young kid owes money to a gangster and he ends up dead. That's essentially the plot. Pretentiousness aside, the level of Marty's production is simply on another level than the first three. Very professional-looking, if obnoxiously so. Carrie calls it a "triumph of style over substance" and wonders if the story suffered for that. The audience obediently boos, and Marty, like a total fuckwad, thanks the audience for booing and says that while it might seem like he's style-over-substance, that's his style. Carrie totally caves to this, and even still Marty says her comment was "rude." Frankel says he "admires" Marty's arrogance, but he needed a stronger story. This played like a trailer, he says, and not even as good as Marty's trailer. Marty doesn't shut up at all, thoughout, constantly punctuating the judges' comments with "okays" and big sighs. Garry seems completely sold, though he does advise Marty to work on building actual characters.
Our last film is Kenny's. He tells us it's about a kid going through "momentary rage" after his dad dies of alcoholism. He sells us a bill of good about how he comes from a small town, where it's easy to turn to alcohol to "drown your sorrows," but he also has big dreams. He sees Marty as his biggest competition. His film, "Edge On The End," features: a hysterically unrealistic "corpse," a young man crying over said corpse, home-video-style footage of the young man trudging off into the snowy woods to drink beer and stare at waterfalls that sometimes fall up by the extremely cutting-edge technique of running the video backwards. There's fake-profound voiceover and fake-profound statements in teeny-tiny text, and tricksy low-fi camera work -- it's essentially the grunge-rock, navel-gazing equivalent to what Marty produced, with Gus Van Sant standing in for Tony Scott. Carrie correctly calls it "more like a rock video" than a short film, but she pulls a note-perfect Abdul and calls him a cute boy. Frankel admires Kenny's film, and in echoing Carrie's music-video critique, offers the kinder label of "visual poem." He thinks it shows a lot of talent. Garry pretty obviously has no idea what Kenny was trying to do, but to his credit, he recognizes it and tells Kenny to stay different, even if he doesn't end up winning this thing. Kenny then totally snubs an Adrianna kiss attempt, nearly falling over in the process of evading her lips. Hmmm.
1 2 3 4
Finally, we still have Trever and Hilary to deal with...and cute little Trever is going home! No! Okay, like I care, but still! Garry essentially blames the whole thing on casting, which has to sting a bit. We run down this week's five films, and if I had to guess, I'd say Andrew and David are the most at risk, with David being my prediction to go. Unless people totally didn't get Kenny's film at all. Of course, with three people nationwide watching this show, I'm sure anything is possible. Couch Baron will be here week to tell me how it all shakes out.
1 2 3 4