Film Geek

Film Geek is a film that comes around once in a lifetime. Director James Westby's grasp of Cinema is overwhelming. The film is everything that Napolean Dynamite should have been. The lead is a dork, loser type, but played to brilliance by Malik Malkasian. If the distributor of this film has a brain, they will roll it out on a grand scale. The movie is short, only 75 mins. But in that time frame, I laughed, I cried, and I was so deeply drawn into Westby's world, that I hoped the movie would go on forever.

If you get the chance to see this gem on the big screen, don't miss it. Westby and Malkasian could be the next Scorsese/De Niro.

5 Stars, A+, A perfect 10!!!!

File this one under: "Maybe hits just a little bit too close to home?"! Certainly, there have been moments in my life when I've felt people looking at me and thinking, "Where did this guy come from...Film Geeks 'R Us?" Have any of you had similar moments? FILM GEEK paints a most unflattering portrait of our young protagonist, Scotty Pelk (deftly portrayed by Melik Malkasian). Open the Cinema Dictionary and you'll see Scotty's photo under "Encyclopedic knowledge of the cinema". For those of us who aren't afraid to hold up a mirror to the soul for a circumspect search, we'll probably catch a fleeting glimpse of Scotty Pelk in some recess of our psyche. Movies are Scotty's universe...No friends, no family, absolutely no other interests. Working at a video store, his entire life, seemingly, revolves around films. Watching films, talking about films and writing about films on his Zero-hit website. He also exhibits borderline stalker tendencies. For those of you familiar with the Universal blog rule: Don't be that guy! Well, Scotty Pelk IS that guy!

Film Geek makes you chuckle at Scotty's lonely-loser life, but the laughter is followed quickly by pangs of voyeuristic guilt. Considering its zero budget (Well, 10K according to IMDb Pro) Film Geek is a cinematic miracle, where the viewer experiences amusement one moment, a haunting eeriness the next, followed by great pathos the next. Topping all this off is a curve ball plot twist, which would be a Spoiler if explained in any way.

To be sure, FILM GEEK is not without its faults. It does get off to a rather lackluster, slow and unevenly paced start. But that all rights itself within 15 to 20 minutes. Also, it seems a stretch to imagine a 20-something possessing such a voluminous knowledge of films, but stranger things have happened...O. K. YOU FILM GEEKs...

...ENJOY! / DISFRUTELA!

This movie is quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever had the misfortune of seeing. The whole story revolves around one Scotty Pelk, a man whose only outstanding qualities are his encyclopedic knowledge of movies and his complete lack of social skills. In the course of this torturously bad movie he learns about life, love, blah, blah, blah.

Sometimes you can find a redeeming feature of a movie, no matter how bad it is. In this case, there isn't even one. The acting was ham-fisted and bad. The writing was either cloyingly sweet ("I love movies more than anything. Movies let you be other people." ACK!), just plain bad, or BOTH.

A lot of comparisons have been made to Napoleon Dynamite, but I think the closer comparison would be to High Fidelity. Both movies are about a young man who has trouble getting on with his life due to an unwillingness or inability to grow up. Both movies feature a protagonist who has allowed his fetish to become the sole source of comfort and empowerment in his life and as a result they alienate everyone around them. The big difference between Film Geek and High Fidelity, however, is that only High Fidelity is worth watching.

1 out of 10 stars - and this movie was lucky to get even that.

Wow....two weeks later and I'm still amazed at how good Film Geek was. It's just good clean and sometimes not so clean fun. If I had a DVD copy of it I would rearrange my collection and place it right in-between Rainman and Napoleon Dynamite. What a character study. Scotty was a believable little weirdo the entire movie. He's the kind of character you just fall in love with. I found myself at the video store where the director works "Videorama" searching for a movie and I thought to myself, what would Scotty rent. A must see for anyone who loves a good off beat character study....checkout Film Geek. I want to watch it right now, I guess maybe I have a little bit of Scotty in me. Hurry up and get it to DVD!

Film Geek, from writer/director James Westby, has all the hallmarks of a film that has been made with absolutely no compromises at all and as such comes off as an incredibly self-indulgent exercise on Westby's part. He got every scene and line of dialog he wanted but didn't really bother to let the rest of us in on the joke.

Scotty Pelk (played by Melik Malkasian) is the titular geek whose life we are supposed to find fascinating. Everything from his monotonous droning about movies to his box sniffing is supposed to endear us to this man but succeeds in doing nothing more than reminding us why it is most people who are labeled geeks are social outcasts. He's not funny, he's not charming, he's not sweet, he's not anything but a pain in the butt and we get to be subjected to his nonsense for almost two hours.

And while Scotty is most certainly in the running for the title of Most Annoying Thing About This Movie, the winners, far and above the tepid acting and predictable plot line, are the little bits of dialog that rear their ugly heads from time to time to remind us that Westby has a horribly overdeveloped grasp of melodrama. The only thing worse than hearing Scotty drone on and on about movies is hearing Scotty drone on and on about his dreams and aspirations.

Perhaps if somebody had told Westby (preferably at the script writing stage), "You might want to try to entertain someone other than yourself," it would have been a better film. Since this movie is supposedly based upon Westby's days as a video store clerk, it's easy to see where this narcissism comes from.