jbronste

A Hallmark-style Christmas vanity vehicle set in NM with stereotypical tropes, but the production quality of NMSU CMI films has greatly improved since the start of that program. Good camera work and sound. The film's dialogue is risibly bad, and Eric Roberts is phoning it in as Santa, but the female lead and her best friend have a good playful energy together. I enjoyed stopping the film to see which background actors and sights around Las Cruces I recognized. I paid $6 to rent this film and I think that's about right--it would have been disturbing to pay $25 for the premiere. Aim happy to see locals like Eric Brekke, Nick Check and Nora Brown getting some screen time.

One of the best episodes of the series, this one hits all the beats of a horror movie or psychological thriller. Guessing the motivations of the characters is difficult and the music is overpowering.

This film is the brainchild of Mark Vasconcellos, who is clearly the Tommy Wiseau of Southern New Mexico. Like Wiseau, he created this film because he wanted to star in a feature film. He has promoted the film, and produced the film, and indeed has produced something similar in many ways to The Room. The biggest difference is thar Wiseau paid his cast and crew. Here, the crew doubled as the cast.

The movie is nominally a crime drama set on the border with drug deals and murdered women and a main character who is disillusioned because his daughter is missing and his wife is in a mental institution. As in the 2012 television show Awake (actually a good show) the main character oscillates among several different realities. Here the difficulty of pinpointing reality is confusing and distracting rather than integral to the plot.

The acting is, for the most part, about the same quality as that in a telenovela: wooden line readings, complete lack of subtlety, actors who don't seem to know why they are saying what they are saying. There's even the occasional Anglo actor putting on a an embarrassing Spanish accent. One exception is the main actor, Andrew Gomez, who seems natural some of the time and would be fun to watch in something with a good script. Jack Lutz also has a good high-stakes moment toward the end of the film.

The script for this movie features some of the most strained and awkward dialogue written by anyone ever. "I am the guru; you, the pupil!" "Because of people like you, the church has received condemnation the world over!" "I did not hit her! I did not! Oh hi, Mark." Just kidding about the last one but you get the idea.

There are moments when it is clear that the writer of the script lacks basic knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary, as when a monsignor threatens an insubordinate priest with "I'll be brought up on charges of insubordination: I'll ruin you."

Vasconcellos emphasizes that this movie is supposed to show people the state of the film industry in southern NM, so maybe the right way to look at it is as a screen test rather than a feature film. The camera work is actually surprisingly fine as long as the cinematographer doesn't try anything "artistic." Shots are edited together well. The dialogue is audible. The incidental sound and music on the other hand is sometimes intrusive and often doesn't match the mood of what is going on onscreen. In short, this is a film that the Rifftrax guys need to get hold of. It is sure to be the next Birdemic.