American Movie

Reaction to bad reviews
The following are two negative reviews about this movie.”The film is trashy, and the people in it are embarrassingly inferior trailer trash. They are all-too-realistically only themselves. They have no lines, they don’t act. The American Dream is not to create shoddy no-quality films or anything else shoddy and of no-quality; it is to achieve something of quality and, thereby, success.” Bjork-Bjork, Portland, Oregon”Should you wish to see the worst film ever made, look no further. Some wretched movies are watchable because they are unintentionally funny. Alas, American Movie has no wit at all, no unintentional humor.” Aben Rudy, Scottsdale, ArizonaMark Borchardt, the subject of the movie, is not trailer trash. He lives with his mom and has a paper route (his three children do live in a trailer with his ex-common law wife). However, he does make “shoddy, no-quality films.” But this movie by Chris Smith is an amazing documentary filled with wit, humor, pathos, and the indomitable American spirit. The director presents a sympathetic, all too real portrayal of independent filmmaking.The film starts with Mark planning his great American movie–Northwestern. The first scene is a monologue by Mark (during his early morning paper route). “I was a failure, I was a failure, and I get very sad and depressed about it . . . Now I am back to being Mark who, who has a beer in his hand and is thinking about the great American script and the great American movie and this time I cannot fail, I won’t fail. It’s not in me. You don’t get second chances and mess them up, you’d be a fool to . . . this time it’s most important not to fail–just to drink and dream–rather to create and complete.”However, Mark realizes that before he can make his great American film, he first has to finish his 30 minute 16mm straight-to-video horror flick called Coven (which does not rhyme with oven). American Movie then follows Mark over the next two years making not Northwestern but Coven. Mark is dogged in his pursuit: enlisting the aid of his friends, his ma, his Uncle Bill, and anybody else he can talk into it. The scenes are reminiscent of Spinal Tap or The Office–perhaps not as clever, but poignant and often laugh out loud funny. Mark and Mike (his childhood friend who provides the music for American Movie) belong in the pantheon of comedy duos–alongside Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy. And Mark’s interactions with his Uncle Bill are touching (when Mark bathes him) and hilarious (when Mark is on take 27 of the one line that Bill has in the movie–“It’s alright; it’s OK. You have something to live for. Jesus told me so!”).Do we watch movies to see beautiful people succeed? I guess in Hollywood. But not in America.

I Heart Mike Schank
I have a confession: I rented this on video as soon as it came out back in 1999 & I hated it. In fact, my friend & I turned it off in the middle of the film. Actually, I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but one of the reasons is b/c we didn’t know we were watching an actual documentary. Looking back on it, I feel like one of those stupid people who went to see The Blair Witch project, threw up, & thought it was real. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid.But I eventually had to watch this again in one of my film classes (yes, by then I realized that it was an actual documentary) & I gotta say… I loved it this time around!As far as documentaries go American Movie is near-flawless. It’s got humor, sympathy, inspiration, old guys eating Polish sausage… You name it– it’s there. No really, we laugh at the “characters,” but there’s actually an inspiring & uplifting message to it all. It follows the life of one major film buff from Milwaukee who sets out to make a feature film (Northwestern) but becomes sidetracked with funding problems, so he decides to finish up a short horror film (Coven) to sell for profits. The trials & tribulations of Coven’s production make up American Movie.As for the DVD, it’s excellent. There are deleted scenes galore, many of which are GREAT! And they’re not just throw-away junk scenes, which is always a plus. There are commentary tracks & trailers, but best of all, the mother of all extras is… COVEN. Yes, the 22-minute short film is included in its entirety.I saw my friend recently & told her that I not only watched American Movie again but that I loved it! She then told me how she was “forced” to watch it again for one of her film classes & that she loved it too! So there’s hope for all us imbeciles yet.Do yourself a huge favor & see this movie if you haven’t already done so. And if you watched half of it before & hated it, please give it a second try. Once you loved it, come back & purchase this DVD like me!

Great to finally get my all time favourite documentary on blu-ray. I didn’t think Sony would ever bother.Not only the video and audio are improved, but so are the subtitles. Only negative COVEN wasn’t included, which is annoying.

Mark Borchardt is an aspiring filmmaker that is struggling to complete his short film ‘Coven’ whilst indulging his impossible dreams about directing his pet project, a feature film called ‘Northwestern’, in spite of being in enormous debt.Much praise has to be given to the filmmakers here for managing to create a very good film out of what I can only describe as a rather hopeless individual for a subject. Sure, Borchardt’s lyrical waxings about his belief in the American dream and his own desire to succeed are engrossing; but he evidently is all talk as he possesses little actual talent and commitment for his chosen craft, but rather likes the ‘idea’ of being a revered cinematic poet, when in truth he is just a lazy waster who prefers to sit around drinking beer and getting high whilst living in his parents basement and running up even more debts.So where did it all go wrong for Borchardt? He comes from what seems like a nice family. He has many loyal friends and collaborators that only want to help him achieve his goals. He has three lovely children. He’s clearly an intelligent and articulate person possessed by an energy that he’s not sure what to do with. Yet, somehow he’s developed into a selfish and extremely irresponsible individual that has resorted to taking advantage of his wealthy, but senile, elderly uncle into funding his film-making efforts. As Borchardt’s two brothers in the film say: ‘Mark’s biggest talent is his mouth.’ Or in other words he is a gifted BS artist.During the end credits we learn that Borchardt’s uncle has since passed away and has left him $50K to complete his dream project – the feature film ‘Northwestern’. Well 21 years on from the release of ‘American Movie’ Mark Borchardt’s ‘Northwestern’ has still failed to materialize, nor any other completed films for that matter, which is quite pathetic really considering the amount money and support he had at his disposal that instead chose to put all his efforts into making his ‘public persona’ well known to the general public by being the token weirdo ‘People Guest’ on talk shows such as David Letterman and taking cameos in zero-budget straight-to-video movies. But his greatest claim to fame was his misleading cameo as a filmmaker in an episode of Family Guy. This man is NOT an active filmmaker. But ‘American Movie’ is still a fine piece of documentary film-making all the same.