Excellent script & so painful to watch at times. It will hold up over time. I can't compare it to anything. One example, there is no best friend character. That never happens on a coming of age type film. Very unique, funny and realistic film.
I discovered Joel Haver's youtube channel sometime in 2020 and was immediately enamored by a bright, well spoken man with a wit as sharp as a knife. I rather enjoyed his comedy skits, his animated stuff having a fond place in my mind palace.
When he released Pretend That You Love Me (2020) I was reticent to watch because of my own hang-ups with the perceived quality (based on face value, a hellaciously unfair and untypical thing of me.)
When he started a second channel and began talking about films I discovered we had very similar tastes (mostly) and my interest in exploring Joel's filmography grew. And he talked about making movies without a script and that immediately smashed into my recent interest in Scott Shaw's Zen Filmmaking movies.
Struggling to pick a film this evening I asked my bestie (@stoudman) if he would be okay watching a microbudget film from a filmmaker that I had been curious about. He is used to me subjecting him to the strangest shit I find on the internet.
Oh yeah, about the movie... So Sasquatches are real and apparently just really hairy humans. A documentary team is sent to rural Massachusetts to capture the modern day Sasquatch. They follow a Sasquatch dance team as they attempt to win a local dance competition.
Despite this feeling like a rough student film at times it has a lot of charm, and I mean oodles and oodles of charm. And also there are some truly funny moments, even if also sometimes cringey. (Hey, this is the nature of these sorts of microbudget films and you take the good with the bad (or cringe as it were.))
It suffers a bit from its episodic nature and the sometimes baffling camerawork (The very 70s zooms were a little distracting for me.) But gosh there is so much good stuff on display that all the flaws sort of wash away in a shower of charm and passion, if you are like me and are easily enamored by passionate artists making their art then you will absolutely swoon at this. I highly recommend this film.