Dance Party, USA

This is a beginner movie. The story is lost in long pauses in the dialogue. And like a telenovela, one can fast forward without losing anything. At least, when they filmed on actual film the time meant money. Now the time means time, and that the whole team seems to have in excess. The script is slow. The dialogue is slow. The delivery of the dialogue is even slower. The camera is annoying. The editing is bad. Overall something that had to be done in order to get the grades.

I feel each person in here has something more to offer. But they do it like it's a chore.

As far as mumblecore goes, this is the best of the lot. Why? Because it's about teenagers, so their mumbling awkwardness seems natural and unaffected. Seriously, people over 17 years old shouldn't be conversing in grunts and "yeahs" and "dudes". Which is generally why mumblecore sucks, because instead of empathising with the characters, you really just want to punch them in their idiot heads. Hence, this film comes across as an honest depiction of a naturally evolving relationship, filled with doubt, wonder, insecurities and all that other lovably solipsistic mumbo-jumbo that makes sense when it comes from TEENAGERS falling in love for the first time. Plus the final scene at the fun park is super pretty and magical and makes you wish you were a kid again.

So to synopsisise this movie for you: Gus is a guy who lies about his sexual adventures, much like every guy ever, Jessica seems like a lost soul who is trying to connect with someone but having no luck. The pair meet at some terrible house party and a sparkle of light comes alive in both of them.

That's all I can share, it's a movie that is just over 60 minutes long, as with Small Town Murder Songs, that's hardly a real feature film in my eyes but in the short time you get to know these characters you feel like a lot happens, to go in to more depth about plot and storyline would be giving too much away I feel.

My first impressions were that it was a more accurate depiction of the behaviour of people in their early 20's than I remember seeing on film before. It had the feel of Larry Clark's Kids but without the delinquent storyline. As you may have realised from previous reviews I am a sucker for a bit of realism in film, the kitchen sink aesthetic being something I enjoy more than a lot of other viewers and whilst this doesn't reach the level of a Ben Wheatley movie for example it is sufficiently raw and true to suck me in from the very beginning.

Yes the quality of image is poor but you shoot a film with a standard digital camera it's not gonna look like Star Wars and it simply adds to the intended effect. Katz doesn't look at his equipment, think he's making a documentary and shake his camera about like we've all come to expect from every movie ever made, he does a strong job with what he has to hand and there are some beautifully framed shots throughout.

Sound as you would expect from a movie dubbed mumblecore isn't the crisp clear dialogue you get from a regular movie, characters talk over the top of each other, planes fly overhead, diegetic sounds interfere occasionally but not to the point where enjoyment is hindered or you need to use subtitles.

There's a lot of humour in the film, subtle but still there, watching Gus talk to his male friend Bill can feel like you're watching a live action Beavis and Butthead but I couldn't stop laughing all the same. So many terrible anecdotes are shared between characters, sentences are started and not finished, you've known people like this and been to parties where there's nothing but boring stories, at times it's like listening to your father-in -law talk about the internet but happily you can laugh in these people's faces. It's quite cathartic in that sense. And this is quite a different party to the one's we're used to seeing in American Pie and films of that sort. It's definitely closer to what I've experienced.

The character development is also small but then the story takes place over just a few days and I'm sure we've all complained at implausible character development in Hollywood film so this makes sense but what it does do is provide some wonderful moments with Gus trying to talk over his internal changes with Bill and a truly sweet ending to the film.

Overall despite knowing not all of you will enjoy I can't recommend this film enough. It's not perfect but it is enjoyable. I'm very much looking forward to Katz's followup Quiet City now. blahblahblahgay.blogspot

This picture saddened me. I know it represented only a segment of the teenage population, but to believe and I do that some of our young people are unable to express their feeling verbally is troubling. The young actors in this picture seemed to dialog by guessing what the other intended. In the other reviews I became aware of the genre that is being called 'mumblecore.' In my mind this is a tragic step backward in film making. It not only bores but annoys. As much as I would have liked the characters in this picture, I was given no reason to do so. When the picture ended so abruptly, my guess is that the film maker ran out of film, and that didn't bother me one iota.

Dance Party, USA is not a bad addition to the Mumblecore family in any way. It does feel cheap and kinda amateurish, but since I know thats what these movies are supposed to feel like, I won't take it out on the filmmaker.

If you even know what this movie is and are aware of this new Mumblecore movement of late, then you'll probably want to check it out. It's got some good moments in it, but for the most part its kind of boring and pointless. But again, thats really what all Mumblecore movies are, so I didn't think it was too bad.

A final note; these kind of movies really make you want to go out and make your own film. It makes you believe that all you need is a digital camera, some friends and a 70 page script and you're done. Its a bit more complicated than that, but Mumblecore is something new and something different. I can definitely see these movies becoming the new face of Independent cinema, because guys like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith have made it very difficult to make Indie films along the same lines as their work.