Patrick Felton is one of WV’s leading new media activists, getting a degree in media from Syracuse U. and returning home, not Hollywood. He helped organize the recent meeting of the WV Filmmakers Guild in Sutton, and a lot more. He told me about the showing of this film in Huntington and here is his review. I hope to see it myself some day. I have seen the director’s earlier film, “Maneater.”
The Excribitionist
(Apartment 2 B Productions)
Directed By: David Smith
Written by: David Smith & Molly Tilly
Starring:
Director Smith, notable for his 2007 low-budget feature “Maneater” has a unique comic voice in Huntington’s growing new crop of independent local product. I’ve often attributed Smith as one of the fathers of “The Huntington New Wave” an explosion of new super-low-budget and video product that emerged in the wake of 2006’s “We Are Marshall.” Along with Kyle Quinn, Ian Nolte, Seth Martin, and Molly Tilly, these filmmakers seem to have picked up where “Van Fleisher’s” “Burning Annie” left off and endowed the the Jewel City an aesthetic that speaks to the new rules of digital filmmaking. With absolutely no financial backing, these filmmakers continue to tell ambitious and entertaining stories on what are in essence consumer-grade cameras. In ‘The Excribitionist’ Smith may have drafted his final for the cause, a surprisingly touching portrait of identity in transition.
‘The Excribitionist tells the story of Josh (played competently by Greg Kiser), a lovable loser, who details even the most banal details of his life on his blog. Josh is so diligent about blogging every detail of his day, that even strangers are able to figure out who he is just by his entries. His bare-all style causes him to lose his job, which creates a domino effect in his life. In the process of seeking new employment, Josh meets a girl named Claire (played by the stunningly beautiful Erin Deegan), whom he learns is a long-time reader and fan of the blog. Along the way, they both face the consequences of what happens when internet personas and real life collide.
Both leads do a great job of carrying the movie. There is a real level of unexpected charm to Josh and Claire’s relationship, despite the unbelievable levels of incompetence Josh shows in dating. Josh is a truly uncharismatic slob. He makes Seth Rogan look like Edward Cullen. At several points I found myself thinking “There is almost nothing to really respect about Josh. Why do I care” but as soon as I would think that, he’d say something or do something so cluelessly charming that I couldn’t help but smile.
Ultimately, how you feel about “The Excribitionist” is likely to be tied to how you feel about its no-budget, intentionally sloppy aesthetic. Watching the film is often like watching an extended Youtube video, full of shaky frames, grainy color, and occasional continuity errors. Like previous products, Smith seems more interested in film as vessel for a script than in making the next “Citizen Kane.”
I have always found this to be inherently forgivable, mostly because the scenes themselves are so entertaining. In some ways this liberates the film to go on tangential comic adventures which employ dozen of entertaining cameos performances including Morgan Shillenburg. There’s a sense of true joy in the way that Smith shoots these films. The fact that he can go anywhere, shoot anything with anyone at any time, and still have time to make it home to watch “The Office”: its every filmmaker’s dream. If the results if this style of shooting continue to produce such comic gold, I’ll be happy to continue to watch them.
Perhaps more transgressive is the sound design, which occasionally leaves much to be desired. Exterior scenes in the film are often so loud that they become an unintentional critique of Huntington’s growing noise pollution crisis.
Two things save this from killing the movie:
First, much of the film is told in narration, with Josh reading his blogs aloud. Normally, I’d reject this as lazy storytelling, but it works well here. Hearing the blog entries read aloud articulates the absurdity of the process in general.
Secondly, the film employs the musical talents of Singer/Songwriter Sasha Collette for a musical soundtrack/score. She’s a true musical talent, and its presence in the film can do nothing but improve it. Key tracks such as “Sacrifice” and “Peraldo Family Carpets” will make you want to buy this soundtrack immediately. She has the voice of an angel and the wit of a charlatan. With lyrics like “Hey see me walking I’m posh-like and pretty and if you want I’ll even let you pet my kitty” she gives the audience a real reason to sit through the end credits.
I suppose focusing on the sound of this film is to miss the point.
This is a film is, like most of Smith’s work, a love letter to Huntington and not just the pretty part. We see Josh traverse through the gloomy interiors of university housing. We’re reminded that Huntington is more than just the riverfront and the Keith Albee.
Smith’s Huntington is college town milieu of poor lonely students stuck between youth and adulthood. A great sequence when Josh is invited on a road trip highlights his childish tendencies when it is revealed that it is the first time he’s left Huntington. Once again Smith portrays his protagonists as boys who are barely men asked to navigate the most difficult of emotional challenges. The awkward, stressful, and embarrassing treatment of male sexuality acts as nice counterpoint to the Judd Apatow’s of the world. Plasma Centers, STDs, lonely apartments – It’s like if Suddenlink produced a version of MTV’s “The Real World”!
Also the film is jam packed with laughs.
The film is at its best when balances its cooky manchild characters more topical humor. Through the eyes of its humorously detached protagonist, we are treated with sly satirical parodies of everything from freshman Power Point presentations to niche-fetish amateur pornography. Perhaps the funniest of these are the “Peraldo Family Furniture” commercials, a send-up of local carpet commercials that hits at the kitchyness of local advertising. Molly Tilly performance as Jeanee Peraldo in these commercials is laugh out loud funny.
While Smith still has significant room for growth as a writer, the level of narrative momentum that the movie holds is encouraging. Whether or not you like the characters, you can’t help but be curious how they are going to work themselves out. It’s a credit to the writing that it can camouflage plot points so well with jokes that it never feels predictable, even though you can see the ultimate resolution of the piece coming a mile away.
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