Film Geek

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.

I wanted to like this movie, but I didn't. It was simply too low budget to be enjoyable. The acting was generally pretty bad and the story was relatively formulaic.

There was a smattering of funny one-liners (most of which involved the word "basically"), but not nearly enough to get me through the 70 minutes without checking my watch.

Of course, as a film geek, I appreciated the references to lesser known directors and films. In fact, I would have loved it if that aspect of the film was played up. Instead, we get to see a corny pseudo-romance unfold and watch countless "Napoleon Dynamite" wannabe jokes fall flat.

The film doesn't work because the acting and storyline are subpar and the protagonist is a caricature who is far too one-dimensional to be even remotely believable. However, the cinematography is decent for a movie that seems to have been made for about $1000. The music wasn't too bad either.

If someone edited this down to only the obscure film references (which would probably run about 10 minutes), it would be funnier and much more digestible.

I wouldn't even recommend this one to cinephiles.

3 out of 10

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.

Film Geek (2005)

*** (out of 4)

Extremely uneven but slightly entertaining look at film buff Scotty Pelk (Melik Malkasian) who finds his life going nowhere when he's fired from his video store job. Things start to look up when he meets a young woman (Tyler Gannon) who appears to have a love for movies as well. FILM GEEK, by the title alone, is a movie that film buffs are going to want to check out and while there are some nice ideas scattered throughout, there's no doubt that a much better movie could be made on the subject. With that said, there's no question that I found a lot of it to be charming and even got a couple nice laughs out of it. I'm sure most film buffs will laugh when they see Scotty trying to explain "black bars" to someone who doesn't care or seeing him trying to talk two teenage girls into checking out foreign films. I think the nature of Scotty's knowledge is rather ordinary as far as a film buff goes but it's still fun just seeing someone with a love for film. Throughout the movie we get some text on the screen showing off some of Scotty's favorite directors and their top five movies. With that said, there's no question that there's more heart in the film than actual greatness. The lead character is extremely nerdy to say the least and he certainly has a lot more problems than just his love for movies. They probably could have toned this down some but at the same time Malkasian is extremely good in the part. The supporting cast doesn't feature any great performances but they all fit their roles nicely. FILM GEEK isn't a complete success but considering its budget, the thing kept me entertained.

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!