The thing I love most about film festivals is being surprised by a great film that you didnt know existed prior to it's running. For me "Movie Hero" was one of those great film festival discoveries, and I didn't even know about it till nearly the last day of the festival. See the festival booklet didn't have a cast listing for the film, so it wasn't until a fellow cohort at the festival Dean (Programmer for the illustrious Dahlonega Film Festival http://www.diff.tv/) mentioned that he had just seen this hilarious film with Peter Stormare in it at the fest. That statement took me aback, as I wasn't aware there was any film at the festival with Peter Stormare in it, and I'm whats best described as a rabid Peter Stormare fan. So immediately I went on a clandestine mission to see this film at the festival after a little poking around I got my hands on a copy of the film to watch.
Movie Hero is a wacky, offbeat, odd, fun little movie. It's about Blake Gardner, a crazy guy that mostly wanders around Hollywood, specifically around the American Cinematheque talking to "his audience," but to most people he's just a nutto talking to himself on the sidewalk. Blake is a movie nut who thinks he is in a film, and he is the "hero" of it, but a film can not exist without just a hero. Along the way he finds a random "Suspicious Character" walking around on sunset to be the villain of his film, his beautiful therapist is his reluctant love interest, and he spends quite a time on the sidewalk with a sign across his chest recruiting his sidekick eventually he finds an unemployed comedian. Suspicious Character turns out to be a real villain running around LA stealing people's "audiences" and storing them in his guitar, the only one to stop him is "The Movie Hero."
I wouldn't expect the guy from clueless would one day kick ass in a film like this, yet Jeremy Sisto creates a lovable, crazy, "heroic" character with Blake Gardner. I could go on forever about how much Peter Stormare totally rules in this movie, for those that aren't familiar with him Peter Stormare was Buscemi's cohort in Fargo, or Jeff from Dancer in the Dark, or you might know him as the Russian Space Station Guy in Armageddon. The guy is a character actor god, he personifies suspicious characters in film today thats why he is perfectly cast as "Suspicious Character" in Movie Hero. The always smoking hot Dina Meyer is Movie Hero's therapist/love interest, it's pleasing to see her back in a good movie she sure has ran through a string of crap over the past 4 years (Bats, D-Tox, Unspeakable, Nemesis). Brian White steals many few scenes as Movie Hero's sidekick. Also look out for a cameo from Alexis Arquette as a Transvestite Prostitute as well as a song by Peter Stormare.
First time director/screenwriter Brad Gottfried has crafted an original, entertaining, quirky movie. I can't wait to see what he's doing next. If Movie Hero plays at a film festival near you, you owe it to yourself to seek it out. Check out the film's web site RIGHT HERE!!
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