Burning Annie

I just saw Burning Annie in a private screening and was impressed. It plays like a smarter, nerdier version of your standard Hollywood college-age hookup movie. These people think, talk, and act much like me and my friends do -- their lives center as much around pop culture references and video games as they do love. The humor comes from a dead-on portrayal of all the types of people you meet in college; they're slightly exaggerated but always ring true. This is the kind of movie you watch, enjoy, leave feeling good, then find you're remembering funny scenes and bits of dialog days later. This is definitely a film that deserves a wider audience than it's enjoyed so far.

Few films can come close to the fun and charm and class of Woody Allen's best romantic comedies, but Burning Annie does everything it can to come close on its low-budget, DV-style. It was made on the cheap, but there's a lot of heart put into it, and the characters end up being in some wider depths of range than expected. There's the insecurities faced, the shallowness, the admittance of guys as potential 'failures', albeit out of a kind of lackadaisical malaise college brings on, and how relationships- cliché included here- are hard work. Max (Gary Lundy) tries to break off from his biggest hang-up, which is watching Annie Hall like it was going out of style. For him it starts to seem as some kind of crazy sign that he cant hold on to relationships due to the movie. So he stops watching it after his last girlfriend left him. Enter in Julie (Sarah Downing), who apparently, according to his friends is a bit like the Annie character. Can he deal with this, or will he finally succumb to the bliss of a person he likes to be around with, his neuroses attached and all. Maybe there's only so much of Allen in Max, and by the end he has to get to terms with what's really in him and what's not in being with those he wants to be with.

What makes the comedy rich is in the simplicity and expectations. The latter could be a problem, but the actors are fairly capable of taking on some of the nuances of Zack Ordynans's script. The friends of Max- Charles, Sam, Tommy- veer sometimes into becoming caricatures, but they get pulled back by the realities of their lives (college doldrums, there own dysfunctional attachments and ties with the opposite sex), and they all usually get their own piece of character depth. I really liked specific moments in such characters in homage-style to Woody's film, like when the guys are in the store, and suddenly it spins over to the other side of the store, breaking the 'fourth wall', seeing the uneasiness of an awkward admittance from one to another that they like the other. It's been seen many times over, but it's clever in the actors simple marks on what their characters are about from scene to scene (fairly consistent, especially with the completely insecure Max as played in average manner by Lundy). I also loved the dinner scene where all the couples came together, only to see how things could crumble so easily in social situations.

Themes end up coming out well enough too even through the occasionally weak direction (a shot or two is pleasant enough, with some good tinting, but it's best when the director just lets the actors have their way with the material). Commitment, both to the other in a relationship is one of them, but not just in the rudimentary sense always, and Max's own two-sided self that becomes in conflict when hapless wit has to contend with more stable, down-to-earth emotions. The script is aware of not just the effect of pop culture on college kids (the Kevin Smith and Goldeneye dialog is pretty sweet), but of the labels brought out in such situations. Not that it's always completely successful; the ending felt a little on the uneasy side due to what happens in motivations between Julie and Max, as well as the dialog in the last dorm scene with the guys. But for the most part Burning Annie has charm to spare, even through typical scenes like at a rock club, and quiet little moments like playing hockey video-games and with a few great zingers put in there: "ooh, Snow Dogs." It's a little indie 'rom-com' that strikes much better at its narrow goals when compared to sociopathic case-studies in the guise of believable Hollywood relationship fodder. 7.5/10

Burning Annie is the best film i seen this year plus the music is great.

If you haven't seen it you can get it at Walmart.com or best buy.com it is also available for rent at Hollywood Video, it is a must see.

If you love great comedies, then you will love this film The acting is great and it is defiantly a great date movie .

I wish there where more great films like this and look forward to more films that can at least compare to this one.

Gary Lundy did a great job playing max, i love when he says "I'm the only guy i know who gets insulted in his own fantasies =]

I'm not a big fan of long winded reviews, technical blathering, unabashed praise for "breaking new ground" or endlessly cheering another cinematic innovation when these elements disguise a weak story.

Thankfully, BURNING ANNIE is anything but that. It's a somber, somwhat bipolar view of what it's like at College for THE REST OF US. You know, the one's who didn't have that AMERICAN PIE experience in the "best years of our lives", the one's who, more often than not, didn't get the girl, and ultimatly, the ones who still examine our lives, wondering what more we can get from it. That said, BURNING ANNIE holds more in tune with THE RULES OF ATTRACTION than VAN WILDER or any recent college film in memory. It's not entirely uplifting, but it's true to life, and it's humor is found through these moments, the ones we all can relate to. While the copy of BURNING ANNIE I saw wasn't 100% complete, and the festival venue was less than stellar, it was truly one of the gems out there. Few times have I heard more people discussing it over a post-film cigarette.

Will BURNING ANNIE be a smashing success like AMERICAN PIE? Probably not.

Does BURNING ANNIE break new ground? Not exactly.

Are it's characters rich, fully fleshed out, with real flaws and real pains? Yes, yes and YES!

And that's it's strongest point. Everything else, from the moody rag-tag indie label music, to the subdued somber lighting, paints a beautiful portrait of REAL people struggling with REAL problems trying to find their places in the REAL world. From the direction to the acting and everything in between, it's a solid, consistent production that, despite a few minute hiccups, has earned a place among my favorites.

But it's not a movie for everyone, and if it doesn't get distribution (which would be a shame) few will have a chance to disagree with me. In an age of target marketing and mindless gross out targeted at the village idiots, it's a breath of fresh. And to those who like thoughtful well paced character studies about the transitions in life and the prices we pay, this is a film for you!

As a first time movie, few films rival it, so it's with great excitement that I look foreward to another production by the same cast and crew.

I see a lot of movies and was not expecting much from this film after having seen a string of woeful efforts in the last few weeks.

This movie was EXCELLENT! The humor was low-key which meant that it actually meant something rather than having a group of young performers trying to be funny.

There was a strong sense of reality about Burning Annie that I found uniquely special and have found myself raving about it since first viewing it.

The cast and crew should feel proud of this work and I just hope that it is seen by a wide audience as it deserves to.