Sunday, July 05, 2009

The Projectionist (A Review)

Today I watched a movie titled The Projectionist. It was written and directed by Mattson Tomlin, a fellow blogger I happened upon. On a random Friday in each month he gives away free copies of his films that he's made, and I happened to win one.

The film was created when Mattson was a senior in high school, with a cast of friends and teachers. He did the music himself. He recorded the film himself. He edited the film himself. He wrote it himself. Everything combined, the film was worth watching.

The story is about an up-and-coming mayor who happens upon a young woman that gets hit by a vehicle. He falls for her and the two start seeing each other. This woman, by chance, happens to be in a failing relationship with a jerk lowlife movie projectionist. She ends the relationship to be with the candidate, and the ex seeks revenge.

The story is interesting, but a bit choppy. Some parts seem redundant and some parts I'm not sure I entirely understood, like the seemingly random interjected movie rehearsals. The development of the characters, or more like the revelation of the character's true colors, is fun to watch. To me, the movie seems almost like a modern Hitchcock film, but not as macabre.

The only main problem I had with the movie was the sound quality. At some points the music is too overwhelming (when David starts seeing "things") or the sound too loud (at the town hall meetings when the crowd applauds), but other times I struggle to hear what the people are saying.

Overall, The Projectionist was not the best movie I've ever seen, but it definitely was not crap either. Considering Mattson did the film in high school it's actually quite amazing. Considering the actors were not actors, the characters in the film are believable and portrayed quite well. It seems like a B-movie when watching it, and realistically I guess it is, but I enjoy B-movies, so I enjoyed watching this.

If you're interested in watching the film, follow this link to Tomlin's website, where you can contact him about getting the movie, or follow the blog and keep an eye open for Free Film Friday's. Good job, Mattson.

4 comments:

marky said...

Free movies! I’m in.

I had a wee film weekend myself. I watched a Spanish film called REC. It's like Cloverfield with vampires. Well worth a watch.

And, I watched Sick. I was blown away with that movie.

If I had to pay for health insurance, then got denied treatment because I had an infection ten years ago that I forgot to put on my insurance forms, I'd be starting a revolution. Thank God we have a national health service here.

I was in tears after hearing some of the stories from people that were denied the proper medical treatment, because some hospital wants to keep costs down.

What’s with the expensive drugs!?! If I get a prescription from the pharmacy, it costs me £4, whatever the amount or drug is. And if you’re over 60 or unemployed, it’s completely free.

If you pay taxes, you should be entitled to free medical care. None of this making money off the sick and dying malarkey! It’s just not cricket.

logankstewart said...

I liked Cloverfield and I like vampires, so that sounds interesting.

As for health care, here in the States it basically sucks. I went w/o health insurance for about 6 or 7 years or so (maybe more?) and I finally got some when I got my job. Fortunately, my employer pays for all of my premium and for 75% of my dependents, so it's not too expensive. Unfortunately, we still pay an arm and leg for actual treatment and care and prescriptions.

Ah, it would be nice and refreshing to have free health care. Thankfully there's some reform going on in the legislature to get things better.

MT said...

Wow! A likable and well written, honest review. I am quite flattered. Thank you for taking the time to watch it, and to report your thoughts to the rest of the world. it makes it very worth it for me.

logankstewart said...

No problem, Mattson. And I just realized that I wasn't officially following your blog, so I remedied that situation, too. Keep up the good work.