SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Ginger Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
ShimmySnail I actually really enjoyed this. After seeing American Movie, which I loved, I was ready to laugh my way through this, but I was surprised. The writing is good, and it has a surprise ending. I was surprised, anyway. Yes, it's a local film, it's short, it's a B movie featuring a bunch of amateur actors, but if people are going to give summer blockbusters a just because they feature big names and have lots of action and whizbang special effects, yet their writing sucks and they use pre-existing franchises as a crutch, then I'm going to give independent movies a on the low budget and lesser experience of the actors. I enjoyed it. If Borchardt's next film is as good, I'll be very pleased.
flickchick40 This short film shows real talent. Very artistic looking and reminiscent of horror films of the 70's. The acting left allot to be desired, but it actually looks really good. I like the black and white. I hope to see more movies from Mark, he's classic. The documentary about the making of this film is called American Movie and it's a fascinating look into how this film got made and all the characters that were involved in doing it. Mark and his cronies are super interesting portraits of middle America and the depiction of what a long process it is to make even a short film, is extremely inspirational.
Bordo3k Coven is not a very good film. I Could give it the benefit of the doubt and say that it was shot on a budget of nothing, but I'm not that nice. Had I shot a movie this poor I would be able to realize it, and having a screening for friends and family as Mark did in American Movie would have been out of the question. I do however have to give the guy respect for completing his film which was 3 years in the making, but he made so many mistakes which I wish he could learn from, but sadly I believe he never will. His first mistake: Starring in his own film. Some directors can probably do it, but not even Quentin Tarrintino or Kevin Smith ever starred in their movies early on, they gave themselves smaller ing roles. Had Mark decided to spend more time behind the camera and less time in front, maybe he would have been able to generate more from his actors. Instead he gets stiffly delivered lines and changing accents. Next mistake is the camera work. Again, more proof that starring in your own independent films means certain doom. Too many static shots and not enough cut aways. Do we really need to sit on a wide shot of two people having a conversation outside of a car for a solid minute? It gets really old fast and begins boring the audience, making them think about things like "I wonder where I put that twine ball" instead of focusing on the film. Cutaway to closeups of each character as they speak, then back to the wide shot, then cutaways. Mix it up a bit! Plus, had he not starred, the main character wouldn't have ended every sentence with the word "man," something that made me grow sick of American movie by the end. Mark- please stop saying man, it really shows a lack of intelligence and I know you are way smarter than that. Next comes the editing. Not tight enough. There is a lot of fat that needs to be trimmed from this film. It runs about 35 minutes, but could have easily been cut down to 27, and would have been far more effective.Alright, I'm through being negative, so here's some positive stuff: Some scenes are shot really good, like the opening establishing shots are beautiful, and the running down the road scene looks great. I especially love it when the truck pulls into view. Some of the scarier stuff in the film are shot quite well. Lots of fast zoom in and zoom outs, very Sam Raimi like.Basically all I'm saying is that Mark: quit starring in your films (I see you are starring in Scare Me, your latest effort... hmm... interesting...) and start directing your films. Being a director is more than just telling where the camera needs to be pointed. You need to give direction to your actors. Help them strive to get the performance you need to help achieve your vision. Stale delivery is unacceptable in my book. Also, stop saying man- I cannot stress that enough. See coven on the DVD of American Film. The End.
David Edward Martin When I moved to Milwaukee's East Side (where UWM is located) in '91, I saw fliers all over the place advertising a feature film to be shot in Milwaukee and asked for people to fill openings for cast and crew.I'd already lost a chance to be a script messenger on what turned out to be FIELD OF DREAMS (my car was too undependable for me to take the job) so this looks intriguing. Unfortunately I was tied up with a helljob at Kelly Temp that prevented me from making the initial meeting. Sigh..... Oh well.....In the years that followed, I wondered what happned to that flick. Then I saw AMERICAN MOVIE and knew.Well, Mark, if you need me for some future flick, e-mail me!
