Zah-A Pizza Movie

I saw a screening of this movie at the Starbase Indy science fiction convention, late November, 2010. Manu Intiraymi was one of the featured Star Trek guests and showed this the first night of the con. As the audience watched, he provided occasional commentary. Among the main points are that this was his first attempt at making a film without any training; this WAS his film school. He also said that this is what you get for making a movie on a budget of $15,000. Not too bad for that amount, if you ask me. One of the funnier points he made was that the guy who plays his boss Frank was the only SAG actor they hired, and he turned out to be the worst actor of the movie! Also, another nice little bit of trivia is that though not credited on this page, the man who portrays MJ is Manu's actual father. Overall, it was enjoyable and worth my time, but as Manu himself said, "It's one 65-minute-long pizza joke." He also mentioned that they spent the entire movie trying to spoof themselves, but forgot to let the audience in on that. Some parts are embarrassingly badly acted, but it's still a fun flick. If you have the chance, see it, but there are only about 100 DVD copies left, so it's on a very limited run.

This was one of the most surprisingly excellent films of all time.

I have no idea what this movie's budget was, but it couldn't have been more than a couple grand. In spite of that, this movie really capitalizes on one of the most universal truths never told on film: Everyone loves pizza. This guy loves pizza... dare I say it... too much? Indeed, it's the story of a man who's love of pizza tears his life apart.

The premise alone is funny, but the movie backs it up with plenty of hilarious situations and a full linear narrative. There were a few spots where the budget broke through in a bad way, but for the most part, it succeeded in being a great film, and a very funny movie.