The Auteur Theory (Comedy)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D Film: B-
Someone
is murdering student filmmakers for making bad movies and only the use of The Auteur Theory (2002) might uncover
the killer. Unfortunately,
writer/director Evan Oppenheimer is clueless in how that really works and does
not care, offering very hit or miss jokes about the movies. What could have been another Cecil B. Demented (John Waters’ humor
notwithstanding) turns into a film that should have been much funnier, but is
as lazy as the student films that get mocked.
This
would have been worse without the wandering British filmmaker (Alan Cox) doing
a documentary about how the film festival featured was started by the father of
a slain filmmaker himself. Its send-ups
of other filmmakers are lite at best, and references to older films are
mixed. One on the Batman films is
especially bad, old, lame, and pointless.
The cast is pretty good, but they are not given enough to do. Jeremy Sisto is of note here too, but this is
a film that does not go far enough, proving that Oppenheimer will not have to
know what his title refers t, because his films will never be at that level.
The
letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image is above average, but looks good considering the
different looks from all the student films featured. An anamorphic transfer would have helped, but
this will do. The Ruurd M. Feneinga, Jr.
/Chad Wilson cinematography is too flat at times, but is not bad
otherwise. The film was a Dolby
theatrical release, with the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo offering limited Pro
Logic type surrounds and the sound mix pushes to dialogue and sound effects too
much towards the front speakers for its own good. The only extras are some stills and a trailer.
The other
thing that sabotages this film is the simple fact that it feels the need to be
lightweight, so much so to the point that the film is almost making jokes about
its jokes. This kind of thing is
destroying many potentially good films and that is what happened here. Only those who get filmmaking will get
anything out of The Auteur Theory.
- Nicholas Sheffo
