The Auteur

Caught this at the Cinema 21 in Portland, Oregon last week - and was knocked over by how funny it was.

James Westby continues to improve as filmmaker - delivering his most polished, unrepentant comedy yet. Melik Malkasian kicks in a strong performance as the veteran Spanish porn director Domingo - who parlays a retrospective of his classic films into a half-pickled, ego roller-coaster involving his estranged wife (Cara Seymour in a choice role) and his favorite male porn actor (John Breen).

Full of shameless pot-smoking, nudity and sex - Westby manages to push the trash envelope while keeping the script tight and intelligent. This one is full of choice zingers and great (sometimes uncomfortable) laughs. The audience I watched this with was howling all throughout - something I haven't seen in years. The vibe was a cross between John Waters and Judd Aptaow - shameless and sharp. At the same time, the film has a certain dramatic sweetness - as you watch Domingo struggle to recover his mojo, you start to root for him, despite his personal shortcomings.

Easily one of the funniest indie films in recent memory - and hopefully a harbinger of things to come from this team.

Wow, um... okay so apparently this is an actual movie, and not the summer project of a second-year community college film student? Which is odd, because I cannot imagine any other way that this film could have gotten made.

Seriously, it was pretty bad. Amateurish all the way through, and not even slightly entertaining. It's reminiscent of a Cinemax late-night T&A flick, but without the charm. I have to assume that the couple of positive reviews here were written by people associated with the production, because no reasonable person would think this was even remotely worthwhile.

It has an interesting enough premise, and I suppose a good film could have been made around it, but this one is an abject failure. Avoid.

THE AUTEUR follows formerly renowned porn director Arturo Domingo (Five Easy Nieces, Requiem for a Wet Dream) through a bizarre weekend as he receives a lifetime achievement award at a film festival in Portland, OR.

Encountering crazed fans, former collaborators, bitter enemies, and free-loving hippies, Arturo attempts to put the pieces of his broken career and personal life back together.

Not one frame of this horrible amateurish movie makes sense. It doesn't even lampoon the porn industry well. It's idiotic.

I'd bet it as written by some loser who has never even seen a porno. It's 3rd grade level writing and kindergarten directing. Not one frame is funny or poignant.

A huge waste of time.

Lot's of wonderful reviews on Amazon as well. What a nice surprise over the normal B-reel movies I run in the background at work all day. This isn't for everyone and I feel bad for the people that trashed it so well. Life must get hard without a sense of humor. I wouldn't watch it with the kids or my parents. I wouldn't watch it with anyone that can't handle sexual content. It is by no means a porno but if you read some of the spoiler reviews you can easily guess what you might see. I did recommend this to several people I know. I'm saddened that it took me so long to find this gem. After seeing the first negative review on the main IMDb page I felt I had to write my 1st review. In my opinion this film was undeserving of such low marks but everyone is entitled to their own. Worth the time!