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Home Movie
Home Vision Entertainment // Unrated // August 19, 2003
List Price: $29.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
I'm probably threatening what tattered shreds of indie cred I've been coasting on from my college radio days, but I'll go ahead and admit it -- I'm guilty of watching MTV's Cribs. One moderately surprising thing I've noticed about these celebrities' homes is that despite wading in piles of cash, their houses are surprisingly suburban. Sure, it's a higher order of ordinary, but no matter how much opulence a rapper can cram into its confines, a big, bland, beige house is still a bland, beige house. Their homes are often as homogenous and uninspired as the music they churn out. The subjects of Home Movie, Chris Smith's followup to the somewhat similarly-titled American Movie, may not be multimillionaire hip-hop moguls, but any one of their houses exhibit more thought and creativity than entire seasons of Cribs.
Home Movie takes a look at five decidedly different houses and the unique individuals that call them home. The first is "Wild Bill" Tregle, an alligator wrangler that lives on a houseboat in the gator-infested waters of a Louisiana bayou. Ben Skora is an Illinois engineer who's customized nearly every square inch of his house, from a rotating living room to an ominous entrance a la Mystery Science Theater 3000's door sequence to a transforming toilet that sprouts artificial flowers. Ed and Diana Pedan are neo-hippies who bought an abandoned Kansas missile silo, dug out innumerable wheelbarrows of sludge, and eked out an underground home that's easily the largest basement in the Midwest. Bob Walker and Frances Mooney adore their small army of cats so much that they've drilled detailed pathways into the walls, glued rubber mice to the walls, constructed countless yards of kitty-rafters, and devalued their house by tens of thousands of dollars in the process. Linda Beech is perhaps the most normal of the lot, the star of a decades-old Japanese sitcom who's since made her home in a remote Hawaiian treehouse.
The houses are all incredible and really have to be seen to be believed; a description of Ben Skora careening around his living room on a recliner or the attention to detail Bob Walker put into constructing his kitty tunnels don't do their work justice. Still, Home Movie is more than a 65 minute take on HGTV's series Extreme Homes; its focus isn't about the houses so much as it is the people who live in them. The idea that someone would take up shop in a missile silo or gut a house to accomodate nearly a dozen cats is more interesting than just a lengthy guided tour of their finished product. Tregle proudly shows off his battle scars against his alligator opponents, for instance. The more Skora speaks, the less he seems like a merely eccentric engineer, veering off into discussions of spirituality and reincarnation that culminates in a claim that he'll use his robot as a conduit to speak from the afterlife.
Although several of the participants are clearly a couple tacos short of a combination plate, Home Movie doesn't poke fun of its subjects, preferring to leave that up to the audience, it would seem. Clocking in at just a hair over an hour, Home Movie doesn't overstay its welcome, a wise choice since it does seem the slightest bit repetitive in its last few moments. A detailed glimpse into the human psyche it's not, but Home Movie is an intriguing, frequently hysterical documentary that comes very highly recommended. Home Movie hits DVD courtesy of Home Vision Entertainment, and though its theatrical costar Heavy Metal Parking Lot hasn't been tacked onto this release, a number of other extras in some way relating to the various homeowners have been included.
Video: Home Movie is presented full-frame, boasting the sort of quick-'n-dirty 16mm photography often seen in documentaries. (Reportedly the movie was shot on 35mm, but it still has that distinctively gritty look of 16mm.) The transfer looks good, though limited somewhat by the source material. The image is relatively sharp and colorful, featuring some small specks and assorted wear in its early moments that appear only infrequently once the documentary is well-underway. Although much of the footage is rather grainy, it's compressed such that the film grain doesn't devolve into a blocky, digital mess. Home Movie isn't reference-quality by any stretch, but the presentation is free of any notable flaws and is, I'd imagine, representative of the intended look of the film.
Audio: The Dolby Digital audio (192Kbps) is similarly utilitarian. The interviews are the emphasis, of course, and the documentary's participants come through clearly and intelligibly for the duration. There's little else in the soundtrack to speak of -- just a handful of music and some loud fireworks, both of which sound pretty nice as well. A documentary like Home Movie isn't going to redefine the way DVD viewers look at their home theaters (nor is it meant to, obviously), but the soundtrack accomplishes precisely what it sets out to do, and that's all I went in expecting.
Supplements: Home Movie includes an unusual assortment of extras; instead of being centered around behind-the-scenes footage, trailers, outtakes, and the like, the bonus material touches briefly upon each of the documentary's homes and participants, even if only in a decidedly indirect way.
The first of the extras is a fourteen-second excerpt from the tourism spot mentioned in the documentary, featuring one of Wild Bill's gators strolling across a Leeziana street. "Monsanto's House of the Future" (12:09) is a vintage promotional piece about the 1957 exhibit at Disneyland's Tomorrowland, consisting almost entirely of plastic and other man-made materials inside and out. Much along those same lines is a brief history of Kansas missile bases produced by a local PBS station (7:32). The remaining participants are celebrated in a pair of still galleries, beginning with 13 shots by Bob Walker and Frances Mooney of their cats in action. The last of the lot are eleven publicity stills of Linda Beech from her Japanese TV series Aoi Me No Tokyo Nikki.
Rounding out the supplements are five TV spots for homestore.com lensed by Chris Smith, featuring the five subjects of Home Movie, condensed to thirty-second nuggets each.
The video-based extras are all full-frame and feature Dolby Digital 2.0 audio (192Kbps).
Home Movie features a set of 4x3 animated menus, and the movie has been divided into twenty-six chapters. The DVD release reportedly includes a set of liner notes, though the final packaging was not available for review.
Conclusion: Just as the end credits started to roll, I was struck by the intense desire to show Home Movie to everyone I know. I immediately hopped online to scope out the best prices for Chris Smith's American Movie and to see what else the director may have had out on DVD. Although documentaries are often unjustly dismissed by the public at large as being dry and inaccessible, I think many viewers will be as instantly smitten with Home Movie as I was, hopefully changing attitudes about the format. Given its short length and $29.99 list price, I'd most enthusiastically recommend Home Movie as a rental, though this disc is still recommended as a purchase.
Related Links: The official Home Movie has a synopsis of the film, various credits, and a list of screenings.
Home Movie takes a look at five decidedly different houses and the unique individuals that call them home. The first is "Wild Bill" Tregle, an alligator wrangler that lives on a houseboat in the gator-infested waters of a Louisiana bayou. Ben Skora is an Illinois engineer who's customized nearly every square inch of his house, from a rotating living room to an ominous entrance a la Mystery Science Theater 3000's door sequence to a transforming toilet that sprouts artificial flowers. Ed and Diana Pedan are neo-hippies who bought an abandoned Kansas missile silo, dug out innumerable wheelbarrows of sludge, and eked out an underground home that's easily the largest basement in the Midwest. Bob Walker and Frances Mooney adore their small army of cats so much that they've drilled detailed pathways into the walls, glued rubber mice to the walls, constructed countless yards of kitty-rafters, and devalued their house by tens of thousands of dollars in the process. Linda Beech is perhaps the most normal of the lot, the star of a decades-old Japanese sitcom who's since made her home in a remote Hawaiian treehouse.
The houses are all incredible and really have to be seen to be believed; a description of Ben Skora careening around his living room on a recliner or the attention to detail Bob Walker put into constructing his kitty tunnels don't do their work justice. Still, Home Movie is more than a 65 minute take on HGTV's series Extreme Homes; its focus isn't about the houses so much as it is the people who live in them. The idea that someone would take up shop in a missile silo or gut a house to accomodate nearly a dozen cats is more interesting than just a lengthy guided tour of their finished product. Tregle proudly shows off his battle scars against his alligator opponents, for instance. The more Skora speaks, the less he seems like a merely eccentric engineer, veering off into discussions of spirituality and reincarnation that culminates in a claim that he'll use his robot as a conduit to speak from the afterlife.
Although several of the participants are clearly a couple tacos short of a combination plate, Home Movie doesn't poke fun of its subjects, preferring to leave that up to the audience, it would seem. Clocking in at just a hair over an hour, Home Movie doesn't overstay its welcome, a wise choice since it does seem the slightest bit repetitive in its last few moments. A detailed glimpse into the human psyche it's not, but Home Movie is an intriguing, frequently hysterical documentary that comes very highly recommended. Home Movie hits DVD courtesy of Home Vision Entertainment, and though its theatrical costar Heavy Metal Parking Lot hasn't been tacked onto this release, a number of other extras in some way relating to the various homeowners have been included.
Video: Home Movie is presented full-frame, boasting the sort of quick-'n-dirty 16mm photography often seen in documentaries. (Reportedly the movie was shot on 35mm, but it still has that distinctively gritty look of 16mm.) The transfer looks good, though limited somewhat by the source material. The image is relatively sharp and colorful, featuring some small specks and assorted wear in its early moments that appear only infrequently once the documentary is well-underway. Although much of the footage is rather grainy, it's compressed such that the film grain doesn't devolve into a blocky, digital mess. Home Movie isn't reference-quality by any stretch, but the presentation is free of any notable flaws and is, I'd imagine, representative of the intended look of the film.
Audio: The Dolby Digital audio (192Kbps) is similarly utilitarian. The interviews are the emphasis, of course, and the documentary's participants come through clearly and intelligibly for the duration. There's little else in the soundtrack to speak of -- just a handful of music and some loud fireworks, both of which sound pretty nice as well. A documentary like Home Movie isn't going to redefine the way DVD viewers look at their home theaters (nor is it meant to, obviously), but the soundtrack accomplishes precisely what it sets out to do, and that's all I went in expecting.
Supplements: Home Movie includes an unusual assortment of extras; instead of being centered around behind-the-scenes footage, trailers, outtakes, and the like, the bonus material touches briefly upon each of the documentary's homes and participants, even if only in a decidedly indirect way.
The first of the extras is a fourteen-second excerpt from the tourism spot mentioned in the documentary, featuring one of Wild Bill's gators strolling across a Leeziana street. "Monsanto's House of the Future" (12:09) is a vintage promotional piece about the 1957 exhibit at Disneyland's Tomorrowland, consisting almost entirely of plastic and other man-made materials inside and out. Much along those same lines is a brief history of Kansas missile bases produced by a local PBS station (7:32). The remaining participants are celebrated in a pair of still galleries, beginning with 13 shots by Bob Walker and Frances Mooney of their cats in action. The last of the lot are eleven publicity stills of Linda Beech from her Japanese TV series Aoi Me No Tokyo Nikki.
Rounding out the supplements are five TV spots for homestore.com lensed by Chris Smith, featuring the five subjects of Home Movie, condensed to thirty-second nuggets each.
The video-based extras are all full-frame and feature Dolby Digital 2.0 audio (192Kbps).
Home Movie features a set of 4x3 animated menus, and the movie has been divided into twenty-six chapters. The DVD release reportedly includes a set of liner notes, though the final packaging was not available for review.
Conclusion: Just as the end credits started to roll, I was struck by the intense desire to show Home Movie to everyone I know. I immediately hopped online to scope out the best prices for Chris Smith's American Movie and to see what else the director may have had out on DVD. Although documentaries are often unjustly dismissed by the public at large as being dry and inaccessible, I think many viewers will be as instantly smitten with Home Movie as I was, hopefully changing attitudes about the format. Given its short length and $29.99 list price, I'd most enthusiastically recommend Home Movie as a rental, though this disc is still recommended as a purchase.
Related Links: The official Home Movie has a synopsis of the film, various credits, and a list of screenings.
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