20 Dates

If you are going to make a mockumentary (and sorry, folks, but that is exactly what this movie is), then make it obvious. Spinal Tap. Don't fake something and then shoot it as if it is real. It goes against the old adage "truth is stranger than fiction". If you are going to write fiction, then don't try to make it 100% believable. What is the point?

Again, it has been shown that this is not a true documentary. There are things that would be easily verifiable had all this really occurred. Things (marriage licenses, hospital records, restraining orders, etc) would be public record. None of these records exist.

I guess I'm the oddball here since the average rating for this movie on Imdb is 5.6. But, I found it difficult to lose interest. I was sincerely interested in the next date. I was sincerely interested in whether the movie would get completed. And, I cared whether or not he would get his girl.

I'm not sure why the average viewer didn't like the movie any better except that most people don't like documentaries - which this was.

However, it was a personal story that had a lot of true drama. No recreations. No embellishments. Actual events and actual persons. The fact that it had a convenient place to start - Date #1 and a convenient place to end - Date #20, made it all the more appealing. I've always believed that a camera following a real person around documenting a particular achievement from beginning to end would make interesting video - and this is proof from my perspective.

You need to realize it isn't like a "normal" movie, but I found it very entertaining and well worth the time.

The idea of this documentary is not so bad: A young single man meets 20 girls to find out if one of them could be the real love. The realisation is not so good. The director is not a very talented one, the whole movie has more of an amateur home video. There are only two reasons to watch it: At the end of the movie actress Julie McCullough from "Growing Pains" appears as one of the dates and she bewitches with her natural charme and Tia Carrere from "Relic Hunter" is the last date. I have seen better amateur videos.

The summary is a bit redundant: Mockumentaries, as a genre, are fairly quirky.

In this case, recently divorced Myles, also a wannabe filmmaker, decides to make a documentary about trying to find true love in L.A. He commits to going on 20 dates and recording the results. Unfortunately, halfway through, he falls in love with one of his dates and now has to figure out how to complete the project without alienating his new love.

What makes this different from standard mockumentaries -- and what some of the other IMDB reviewers seem to be missing -- is that, while it's clear that the final film isn't a true account of the events (some of the dates are obviously faked, and Elie the villainous producer can't really be THAT evil), it isn't so clear whether Myles Berkowitz (credited as writer and director, as well as star) started out with a serious intent to make a documentary, or whether it was meant to be fiction from the outset.

Most of the evidence points to Berkowitz' initial sincerity. This *is* his only film (except for a bit part in "No Small Affair," 16 years before this movie), and Elie *is* listed as Executive Producer. The official budget *is* the stated $60K. Most of the early dates seem real -- it's only the later ones that start to feel scripted, especially the feminist ballerina.

One thing that gives this movie its charm, then, is that while Myles (the character) fumes about the way in which his original vision for the movie is eroding away from pressure from Elie, Berkowitz (the filmmaker) seems to be going through the same genuine quandary for a different reason -- it didn't take his full 20 dates to find love, and NOW what's he supposed to do?

The cover job is both charming and disorienting: He goes back over the old footage and edits it so it looks like it could have been a mockumentary from the start, but plays it from the hip so it looks like a mockumentary pretending to be a documentary.

Wouldn't Robert McKee be proud?

Others might not have the same sense of pride. The film will come off as either a clever if ham-fisted attempt to make lemon footage into lemonade, or a pretentious and annoying trip into the avenues of Independent Film by a blind drunkard.

Viewer's choice, and it seems to depend on what the viewer thinks of Myles: Is he annoying, or is he cute?

I thought he was cute, and while the film is hardly a classic, it's worth a try. Look for it on cable (that's where I found it), and if you're sick of it after half an hour, turn it off and not much lost.

Malarkey is the best word to describe this trashy film. Presenting itself as a documentary on one man's search for love in LA (yawn), the film is even more about the trials of trying to get this movie finished. Myles Berkowitz in the man in charge here. He wrote it, stars in it, and directs the film. To say that his presence is unpleasant is being nice. I cannot imagine anyone finding this guy attractive, and yet the film never shows that either. Knowing beforehand that most of this picture was staged doesn't help the matter any better. Berkowitz never mentions that part of his film is faked. Although I usually don't care about cursing in films, I couldn't help but be very sickened that such a light-hearted movie would have such a plethora of F-words. Most of the people on-screen are dreadful human beings, and I question Berkowitz to why he must follow a dream that he so obviously isn't cut out for. It's like being nail-gunned to a wall at a party you cannot bear. The best moments are suspiciously off camera, which might be accounted for in the "I made this up" part of the documentary. Loathsome to say the least, I hope Berkowitz never gets behind a camera again.-------- 1