new to DVD: Authors Anonymous

In several previous blog entries/ movie reviews, I've noted the increasing futility of documentary-style horror films, but I've got to say that one thing even worse than a documentary-style horror film is the documentary-style comedy.  I'm gonna go out on a limb and say if your name isn't Christopher Guest, Rob Reiner, or Woody Allen, do not even attempt to coat your comedy in documentary wrappings.  It rarely, rarely works.

Authors Anonymous is the kind of movie that makes me question my earlier assessment of talent for everyone involved. Although the cast of this film does a decent -- and that is the right word, not "good," not "bad," only "decent" -- job in the scenes where they actually interact with each other, whenever the movie bothers to remember that it's supposed to be a documentary, all of the actors overact outrageously.  It's not effective, it's not funny, it's just annoying and stupid.  Honestly, from the false interview scenes, you'd think that none of these actors have ever had a conversation with anyone before.  They think that shrieking, or speaking  . . . in . . . exaggeratedly . . . halted . . . sentences, or aggressively poking themselves in the ear in a lame and extremely unsuccessful attempt to mimic unconcious fidgeting, makes them seem "natural" and "spontaneous."  It's maddeningly irritating -- not to mention wildly inconsistent, as the movie, without any sort of transition from one format to the other, often forgets it's supposed to be a documentary, and just as often presents itself as a standard Hollywood film.

All of this is a real shame, because if the filmmakers really had stuck with a more traditional format, this movie might have been enjoyable.  The story involves a group of unsuccessful writers who have formed a sort of support group to encourage each other's writing.  The story is ostensibly set into motion when the least likely member of the group -- Hannah Rinaldi, a seemingly ditzy blonde who is completely unfamiliar with even the most famous pieces of literature -- suddenly sells her book, for a deal so lucrative that the other members of the writing group can't long contain their envy.  But the truth is, every character in the writing group has their own interesting quirks, setting up a series of dynamics with great potential for a movie.  Unfortunately, every time Authors Anonymous starts to get interesting -- and there are several moments when it does -- the movie gets distracted by its own, misguided documentary / interview segments.

In terms of outrageously bad acting, the three worst offenders in the interview segments are Kaley Cuoco as Hannah, and Dylan Walsh and Teri Polo as the Mooneys, a couple whose seemingly perfect marriage completely falls apart when it turns out that Mrs. Mooney has been sleeping with other men, allegedly, as she insists, only "for research" for her erotic novel.

Chris Klein is slightly better as Henry Obert, a charmingly sweet young man who has a crush on Hannah.  Henry is Hannah's polar opposite, a writer who deeply loves literature, knows all the great works, and can quote from Fitzgerald by memory.

By far the best actor in the bunch -- and also, arguably, the best-written character -- is the late Dennis Farina, as the unforgettable John K. Butzin.  John, a die-hard Tom Clancy fan, self-publishes his Clancyish novel The Roaring Lion through a highly questionable self-publishing firm called U R the Publisher!, and the scenes in which John becomes increasingly delusional in the belief that his self-publishing has made him a success, are alterately funny and sad.

Not only does Farina sell this character, but unlike all the other actors in the film, he even sells the documentary interview scenes.  Yes, he's just being Dennis Farina being Dennis Farina, but it's that very naturalism that all the other actors sorely, sorely lack in this movie.  When John repeatedly claims to the other characters that "a certain Mr. Clint Eastwood" is going to turn The Roaring Lion into a major motion picture, you actually almost believe him, even though John really has no reason at all to think that Eastwood has ever even heard of John or his novel.

I think Farina's perfomance may be one possible key to how they could have made this a better movie: Get more naturalistic actors, who can really sell those interview segments.  Alternatively, forget about the dumb false-documentary idea altogether and just give us an old-fashioned regular movie.

I mentioned earlier in this review that false documentaries rarely work, and I'll tell you one reason:  It's quite simply lazy filmmaking.  The best screenwriters have always said, good filmmaking doesn't involve telling things to its audience, it involves showing things to its audience. Pseudo-documentaries take the cheap and easy way out: The filmmakers want to communicate to its audience, and figures the best way is to just have a series of "interviews" in which the characters talk to the viewer.  Yes, it's efficient, but lord is it bland and uninteresting.  Example: Mrs. Mooney's affairs.  Imagine all the different ways a good filmmaker might communicate that a woman sleeps around behind her husband's back!  In Authors Anonymous, we learn by Teri Polo telling the audience, "yes, so what if I've slept with other men?"  Efficient?  Certainly.  Compelling cinema?  I think we all know the answer to that.