THE BEER DRINKER'S GUIDE TO FITNESS AND FILMMAKING
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: More home movies than a professional
production, but through them we see the story of the
writer/director trying to make a go of selling cute films of
his family. He won't do it. Rating: low 0.
I am on the selection committee for the cinema club at Bell Labs in Holmdel, due to the tremendous acumen I have shown in my cinematic writing and because they will allow anyone to help choose the films. One of the other members has been pushing for some time to show THE BEER DRINKER'S GUIDE TO FITNESS AND FILMMAKING. I don't believe that he has actually seen the film, but I think he likes the title. The club has been, on occasion, willing to humor this member but we have been unable to find a distributor for the film. By an odd coincidence the director, Fred G. Sullivan, has also been unable to find a distributor. Finally Sullivan has been able to get the film distributed in a manner that makes maximum use of the clever title and with minimum distribution risk. It has been released on videocassette.
THE BEER DRINKER'S GUIDE TO FITNESS AND FILMMAKING is more a collection of amateur sound home movies that form more a sort of family journal than a real story, though in the course of its telling we do learn a lot, perhaps more than we want, about filmmaker Fred and the Family Sullivan. Fred made amateur films most of his life and as an adult is raising a large family in the Adirondacks on what he can make from his films. His first feature film was COLD RIVER, an adaptation of a novel set in the Adirondacks. It apparently didn't do much for Fred, who leads a hand-to-mouth existence, often just after changing diapers. His children cooperate in misbehaving for the camera, acting up and badly. Children do not really make good actors in spite of the maxim that claims they and dogs are the best. Fred's ingenuousness starts to wear a little thin by the middle of the film and the 84 minutes seem like more. Among the skits he throws in is one of a college professor who deeply admires his work. It is a piece of silliness that could work at the hands of a better filmmaker, but the silliness is not contagious. It becomes clear also that Fred finds his own life and his family cuter than most of the audience will.
Eventually one really feels like grabbing Fred by the collar and telling him, "Look, your family is hungry and you are trying to feed them by selling cute home movies of them. You really are going to have to find another line of work." My rating is a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzx!leeper
leeper@mtgzx.att.com
Copyright 1989 Mark R. Leeper
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