My distinguished colleague pointed me in the direction of this one.  The creators of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy made this fun indie movie about two young kids making a movie.  Sort of “Goundry’s THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP” meets “Boyle’s MILLIONS.”  The boys watch “First Blood” and are entranced from the beginning.  The two film start to film their masterpiece, but religion, school, and growing up get in the way.  It is a story about filmmakers, friendship, and being yourself.

What’s good about it: So much fun to watch.  The kids were great actors and you truly believed in what they were doing.  It really is hilarious to watch them copy the images of “First Blood” and see the fun that all boys want to have when they are growing up.  It is funny,  but also pretty striking in what it has to say about the film industry.  It pokes fun at actors through a puffed up French foreign exchange student, sneers at the party scenes of agents and studios, and ultimately stares right at the corruption of Hollywood and what it does to creative, individualistic filmmakers.  It’s a kids movie for grown-ups.  If you want a fun movie, it can be that.  If you want a multi-layered thinking movie, it can be that as well.

What’s not so good: In order to stick with the kids story about filmmaking, I felt that the film made some broad strokes that didn’t make much sense.  They set up a relationship with the mother and priest, and then that subplot is thrown away.  They set up the conflict with a bizarrely strict religion, and then that conflict is solved far to easily.  The film could have made the conflict between religion and art more interesting, but I feel they settled for just making religion (and education for that matter) the “bad guy”.  Now, in the eyes of the kids, that might be exactly how they view those things.  But this story is a coming of age movie, and it would have been interesting to see how that “black and white” perspective might have changed.  Basically, it was too easy for the boys to fight against society.

Well filmed, well acted, and a great story.  A few bumps, but a worthy rental and a strong buy in my opinion.  This one is going on my shelf.