the first time was totally by myself.

Sucka!

I do think that a chunk of my distance from the set/characters had to do with watching every episode of Greenlight…it’s a good thing I don’t watch those online production diaries for upcoming movies.

most of the problems you describe (aside from the infuriating action sequences, choppy editing, and bad sound design – mostly the paranoid-schizo music) i find pretty charming.

the geography/proxemics issues make the whole thing more surreal to me. the smugness of the opening “trading card” subtitles and the dialogue in the beginning, to me, is about setting up expectations that the film then goes on to totally shatter. the first time i saw this, i groaned when those things came up, even though a couple lines here and there were pretty funny. i thought “oh no, another oh-so-clever, oh-so-hip low budget filmmaker who thinks he’s horror’s next savior. spare me, dude.”

and then there’s that moment. you know the one. and the cynical chip fell right off my shoulder.

sure, alot of the dialogue throughout the film is way too self-aware. but it seemed to me that the actors knew it. or… maybe it had like a Plan 9 effect on me and I could just laugh with it. i’m not entirely sure. but the few ballsy moves here and there (ie: the kid) kept me afloat. i’ll totally agree that the thing has a fair share of problems. i just don’t find them quite as damning as you.

a couple things should probably be mentioned though. i first saw this quite a while ago before all the fansite buzz started gushing all over itself. the only hype it had when i saw it were the project greenlight series and the fact that the weinsteins were sitting on it and nobody knew if it would ever get a release.

also, i haven’t seen a single episode of project greenlight.