LolliLove

As a fan of the good people at Troma's work and ideals, it was on visiting the Troma site that I stumbled on this gem; a mockumentary about helping the homeless by giving them lollies, Lollilove is a sharp satire about helping those less fortunate and a strong debut from Jenna Fischer, but not without flaws.

The characters are well written, and the cast are believable and funny. Even Lloyd Kaufman, in one of his stronger role, as Father Lloyd. James Gunn gets most of the laughs as the ridiculous artist husband, making a number of very un-pc statements - his character is improved for it. The editing, though, is the films trump card, making the film hold together better than most mockumentaries (and a lot of the Troma back catalogue for that matter), looking a lot more professional than its meagre budget justifies. Though Lollilove isn't your average Troma picture and probably won't please all Troma fans, this does share the Troma independent spirit and the dark macabre humour.

That said, there are flaws, the major one being its length; a 65 minute running time, which for a feature film is not long enough to be truly satisfying, at least to this cinephile; yes, the deleted scenes on the DVD would have harmed the film had they been included, but Lollilove would have benefited an extra day or twos shooting, and 10 minutes more the running length. One clumsy directorial choice was the bleeping of swearing, intended to make Lollilove more like a TV show, but seems out of place given the dark nature of humour. Also, a couple of points in the film the joke ratio isn't as strong as it could be, especially when compared to the work of Christopher Guest (a tough comparison point, being that he's an auteur of this genre).

Though not perfect, Lollilove is a wicked satire, a promising debut, and a good Troma title to boot. Perhaps to fully appreciate this film, it is necessary to note the low budget production values, and the work done between husband and wife Jenna and James Gunn. This is worth further investigation if your a fan of mockumentaries, and have a dark sense of humour.

I love it, it's all they ever needed. All the cold, lonely nights, and the begging for change. Not to mention the drugs and alcohol. All that crummy luck had a solution all along, just staring us right in the face. Lollipops!! Of course, why didn't I think of that?

Jenna Fischer directs herself, as well as her husband, James Gunn as "superficial, clueless versions of themselves" in the smartest Troma comedy of the decade, or probably ever, Lollilove. Certainly more original than it may, at first, seem , Lollilove is a mockumentary about an incredibly self involved, yuppie couple,"James and Jenna". Jenna, an ex-model, is looking to get her name back out there, just a little notoriety. Maybe all these celebrities who start charities (only for the good of their careers) are on to something. Then again, all that stuff sounds kind of hard. After loads of soul searching, Jenna figures out a way to impress everybody without putting herself out too much. With the help of her husband, James "wrote Tromeo & Juliet" Gunn, Jenna buys tons of lollipops to hand out to the homeless, so they can realize that they matter. James is even using his "artwork" to design the wrappers, with positive slogans, and everything. So, those filthy bums can finally realize how special they really are. it's gonna be sweet!!

Wait, what? The company which makes these lollipops are now threatening legal action against the Gunns? Don't they know poor Jenna is only trying to be famous? I told you this charity stuff was hard.

Don't ever say (hot) women can't be funny. Jenna Fischer obviously knows what's funny, and it shows in some of her priceless facial expressions. And James Gunn is equally hilarious as a smug, germ-phobic jackass who is just a little too pleased with himself. These two really make this type of comedy work (the censors were actually a nice touch), which is not the usual type of comedy that the Troma team goes for, but somehow, that works as well, just an all around swell hour of entertainment. For more in hilarious mockumentaries (with food in the title) check out the more mean-spirited, Dirty Cop No Donut. Lollilove is mostly for those who appreciate edgy satire, but, especially recommended to those who just plain love to laugh. 8/10

Knowing that this movie was made with such a tiny budget really is amazing. The idea is just genius: a yuppie couple decide to give out lollipops covered in "designer wrappers" hoping to inspire the homeless to get jobs, stop doing drugs, or even stop blowing up planes (with James' characters Mustafa and Osama bin Awesome). Of course, their idea is met with a lot of skepticism as well as downright anger, but Jenna and James fight through this negativity and get to live out their "dream." And fail. It's not politically correct, and it's not glossy or perfect, but goddamnit, that's the way movies should be! See this movie!

This film really makes one appreciate just how brilliant Christpher Guest's mockumentaries are. It also makes one realize that a TV show like The Office is much harder to make than it might appear.

All that naturalistic mockumentary acting looks so easy, but if this film, Lollilove, proves anything it is that mockumentaries can be very hard to make.

There aren't any glaring mistakes in the film's production, but rather none of the elements of the film are done to the level that needs to be done to make these films work. The acting is just a tad overdone, the writing is slightly implausible, and the camera-work is amateur. All those small mistakes add up to bring the entire thing down to the level of mediocrity.

To be fair, the film seems like more of a casual side project than an attempt at film-making history. It seems that the actors obviously knew the film was kind of a lark and not something that should be taken very seriously. In fact, low budget films like this almost never get put out on DVD, so it is pretty interesting from that standpoint.

Even if you are a die hard fan of the genre, though, I would say that you could miss this film without any regret at all.

A yuppie couple want to give something back to the community. They have a scheme which involves giving out special lollipops to the homeless. They believe that the homeless could learn self-worth via lollies wrapped in special wrappers covered in inspirational slogans and drawings.

This low budget mockumentary is quite surprisingly a product of the Troma studio. I say unexpected as their brand of comedy could best be described as 'wilfully stupid', whereas this film contains a comedy of a far subtler variety. The two stars are Jenna Fischer and James Gunn, who also wrote the thing. It's a very good bit of work from them as they both put it great comic performances as the narcissistic couple who are so self-obsessed they never realise just how ridiculous their foolish scheme is. The writing too is pretty good with a lot of black comedy and satire. But the most impressive thing for me was that I found myself actually laughing aloud a few times which is more than happens with most comedies. Not a bad effort at all.