Somebodies

I saw this at Sundance this week, and it was one of the funniest movies we saw. There are a lot of laughs but also some poignant moments. The story is about a young college student who is trying to discover who he is. He insists in the beginning of the movie that he's "not a Cosby kid" and he's far from that, but as the movie goes on, he begins to question his life choices.

This was written by Hadjii, who (from the info in my Sundance magazine) is a part time teacher at University of Georgia. He also stars in the film. Many of the actors in the movie are his real life college friends, but he also used a lot of the "locals" from the Athens, Georgia area.

This film was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved all the characters and the actors who played them. Hadjii is so talented!! He was the director, star,AND writer!! The movie even got into Sundance. I was there and a Sundance festival administrator gave the best opening for it! Everyone should go and check this movie out at the AFI festival in November!If you don't believe me on this than you believe countless critics. Those critics even include the AMAZING Roger Ebert!!!! Can't wait for it to come out on DVD and hopefully in theaters!!! I know that this film will go sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo far if somebody would buy it. So until then I wait patiently for this film.

I just saw this film at the Cleveland International Film Festival and it was one of the best films this year. The combination of African-American family and cultural humor with general college humor was great, and I think anyone who's lived "on-campus" at a college will find this a very funny movie. There were several times in the film where the audience laughter was so loud you couldn't hear the dialog. The acting in the movie was impressive, especially since my expectation was that it would be marginal for a first-time writer/director and a low budget production. It turns out that several of the actors are from the Atlanta comedy club scene and their strong comedic skills are put on display in this production. Hadjii, the director and principal actor in the film has a great future if he can do so well in his first feature-length effort.

I saw this at Sundance and thought it was the most true movie I've ever seen about college life. Other college movies focus on Cinderella stories or toga parties or bad student behavior. This film is a funny story of a real person going to a real college and struggling with real minor issues with real friends in the real world. I would say that a vast majority of those in college are not living the outrageous lives of Hollywood college films. I went to see this because Roger Ebert said it was like being there in person, and aside from the bland acting from the lead, I couldn't agree more. The movie starts out with Scotty trying to figure out if he wants to go to church or not (he was asleep). He finally decides to go and he finds himself falling asleep in the sermon. He continues on in his lazy uncaring life until he meets a crazy girl in a bar, who wakes him up a bit, and a cop on the street, who gives him a favor by way of an ultimatum (be good or go to jail). Scotty tries to be good by doing good deeds in the community but they all make him laugh and he doesn't take anything seriously enough to learn anything from it. Finally, when something big happens to one of the funniest characters, it makes him rethink his life and he starts to get serious about what is most important. You'll have to see the film to find out what is most important, although you probably already know because it's exactly like your life (if you're normal).

A coming of age story about a college low life who decides it's time to grow up. I really love rooting for the little guy and this was the first truly low budget independent film I saw at the Sundance Film festival. I overheard that critic Roger Ebert liked it the day before we saw it, so I was pretty jazzed. It was also one of the few film's we had tickets to before we even got into Park City, but sadly it turned out to be my least favorite film of the festival.

It started out pretty funny, with a couple funny lines and goofy characters, but quickly turned out quite bad with the characters (except the lead, I guess) never going anywhere as they were all stereotypical and one dimensional. The film ran long and ultimately became boring.

There were a couple exceptions (lead actress and preacher) but overall the acting was stiff (mostly from director/actor Hadjii himself who was in every scene). To be honest I don't know why this film made Sundance; however, I congratulate the filmmakers for accomplishing that milestone and I will leave it at that.