If I was a filmaker I'd be damned impressed with this. as a viewer, I liked it but felt like I was awatching a demo tape which hurt the ability to get lost in the thing but again, I still basically liked it. It is a Citizen Kane, great expectatoins type watch the awesome guy go through life plot and it has the cliches of that sub genre. at 75 minutes it was a little short to capture the sort of epic feel it was going for, the music in particular was like "glory!! aaaahhh!!" and some of the touches, like the newreel footage, lacked authenticiy, they should have found a 1950's ribbon mic or equivelent somewhere. BUt the director did achieve alot with a small budget in a very clever way, the whole thing was shot with a green screen and the stuff like the fantastical amusement park was projected or whatever behind them. hopefully this guy will find work in hollywood because he's talented. It's great that someone working with a low budget doesn't feel limited to only do sterotypical indy films. 3.75 /5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je108qsdlGQ
edit: whoah it was made for $30,000 in 15 days. Okay, I 'm a little more impressed now, if only by the guys ability to stretch that into something actually resembling a normal movie