Hits

I'm taking time to write a review due to the quality of the performances given by the actors in this movie. I just watched it on Netflix. The description says "Starring Julia Stiles, David Koechner, Michael Cera". That isn't accurate. Cera is in two scenes and Stiles' appearance is even shorter. IMDb says the budget was $1 million, so there is no way they could afford to pay the salaries those names would command as stars.

The real stars of the movie were Meredith Hanger and Matt Walsh. Matt is a character actor who has been in countless TV shows and movies. Meredith is an up and comer who got her start in soap operas. The characters they and the rest of the cast create are what really make the movie work. In that sense it's similar to "Napoleon Dynamite". If a fan of the movie is asked, "What is 'Naopleon Dynamite' about?" The fan wouldn't describe the plot of the move. Instead, the response would be, "Those guys are just funny. You'd just have to watch it to get it."

Meredith's "Katelyn" is a naive young lady who wants nothing more than to be famous. Does she want to be a pop singer? Or a movie star? Or the host of a TV show? It doesn't matter. She just wants to be a celebrity. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have the talent or the resourcefulness to become one.

Matt's "Dave" is as equally clueless as his daughter, Katelyn. Dave sees himself as the last bastion standing for freedom and liberty against the tyranny of his small town mayor and her evil henchmen called city councilmen. To see how this develops and affects his daughter you're going to have to watch the movie.

Another reviewer stated the movie has too many unnecessary scenes. I have to agree with that. It's probably my biggest gripe of the film. The writer/director would have done himself a favor if he had brought in a second party to give him ideas on the storyline and/or editing of the movie to make the movie flow more smoothly by getting rid of the superfluous scenes or dialog.

Aside from the acting I appreciated the message it sent about today's impact of social media. Never before has Andy Warhol's quote about everyone getting 15 minutes of fame been more true. It's shown in a comedic light, but you can honestly see how ridiculous it is for people like the Kardashians to be famous for no reason, or how the public can try and convict someone after watching a 90 second video on YouTube.

Overall its a quirky, independent film that will appeal to those who appreciate subtle comedy provided by talented actors creating over the top characters.

Maybe the movie would have been better if David Cross was actually in it, instead being behind the scenes as writer director.

The Mr. Show star turns what feels like a few sketches into one big movie about a girl trying to be a star in this era of Reality TV shows like Teen mom which the protagonist is obsessed with and social media, while her dad is getting the attention she thinks she deserves when his complaints about a pot hole in his street goes viral and all the hipsters from Brooklyn come out to help him.

The movie was not funny, although I'm in complete agreement with the joke, it did not make me laugh one bit sorry to say.

It was cool that David Cross got all his friends like Micheal Cera to take small roles adding to the feel of it being a bunch of sketches.

Overall, I got no real satisfaction on his parody of today's version of fame

Sundance London gets underway this weekend with a neat selection of American independent narrative and documentary films that premiered at the US Sundance in Utah. One film we would like to recommend is Hits, the directorial debut of writer, comedian and actor David Cross. Many will best know Cross as the character Tobias Fünke in the American sitcom Arrested Development.

Hits provides an amusing vehicle to satirise a number of aspects in modern US society from celebrity wannabe culture to the YouTube generation.

The movie is set in a small town in upstate New York where we find Katelyn (Meredith Hagner) a young woman, who spends a lot of time pretending that she is being interviewed by chat show host Ellen. Katelyn, who is obsessed with celebrity and fame spurred on by reading "real life" magazines and watching reality TV, is confident that she has the talent to be a famous pop singer. Katelyn has been offered the chance of having a demo made of her singing if she can find the money and sees this as a guaranteed way to getting on the singing show The Voice.

Then there is Katelyn's dad Dave whose main purpose in life outside his normal day job is to attend public council hearings arguing about poor public services and upkeep, potholes and his rights as a citizen under the Constitution. Although Dave is obviously somewhat unhinged he ridiculously becomes part of a huge media circus after a YouTube video is produced portraying him as a notable and worthy small town activist taking on the system.

Bewildered by her dad becoming the focus of national media interest Katelyn becomes even more determined to get her demo made giving in to the demands of a stoner guy who has his own studio.

It's pretty fun stuff as the laughable hipster activist crew headed by Donovan turn up to help Dave's quest for justice only to find a rival hipster activist 'think tank', news teams and others muscling in with the same idea.

Given the easy and seemingly numerous targets for critique in our internet, celebrity obsessed culture there is obviously a lot for the taking and which Cross does manage to nail. How anything stupid can become a YouTube hit, how having no talent of any kind may not be a hindrance in becoming famous, the kind of people who use social media to bluster or do "projects", without much initial fact checking or preliminary research, or undiscerning ranting citizen's who listen to or read too much extremist or hyperbolic media.

Along with the obvious targets Cross also manages to weave in little insights of dark and sad nuances of our modern world but always with a touch of humour for good measure. Like hipster Donovan's wife Maddy who seems to be more in love with a kind of consumer's passion for all things cute as much as she is about actually having a kid. There is a funny scene where Donovan and Maddy get supremely weird talking with their young weed dealer-cum-possible surrogate son, a cameo role played by Michael Cera (Juno, Arrested Development, Superbad). There is also a sweet but sad moment when Katelyn muses about how great her dad is but at the same time seemingly aware of how self centered she may be in the relationship. You get the feeling that mass media has made her that way and that the media has a lot to do with stoking the dark underlying views of her father who on the flip side does indeed seem like a stand up dad.

So all in all Hits is as much about how the media today is out of control and the type of people and society it is creating – a funny ride definitely worth catching if you can.

A fame hungry food server will do everything to be a star even if she literally has nothing to back it up. When her father suddenly became an internet sensation and hooks up with a local hipster group, she tries to capitalize and get her 15 minutes of fame.

Not my cup of tea.

Another film that does not live up to its mocking premise. It just happens. I think the main culprit to the rather cold reception of the film is since it went for an ensemble it does not really have a strong narrative to back it up.

The characters are mocked without really giving a lot of earned moments or clear connective themes. The narrative also does not rise to its boring America premise. In addition, The 'I want a son like him scene' or just the general sense of the whatever that the Voice CD went, or the hipster movement is just plain non-sensical and never really have any kind of stakes. The film did everything all at once. By having more than one focus, none of which landed - leaves you just plainly thinking that happened without any emotional impact. It just happened. Ha.

Not recommended.

The writer of this movie is so out of touch with reality. I couldn't even finish it. Just shows how many uneducated people are in "Hollywood."