Hacker Cinema
American Movie
1999 · Film · documentary · 104 min
Directed by Chris Smith
American Movie documents the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.
11 positive1 neutralfrom 12 commenters
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13 comments on Hacker News
I just watched American Movie for the first time a few weeks ago. It is just so endearing man.
Hell, I might watch it again today.
I have watched the Fog of War so many times.
It is just hard for me to rate the King of Kong or American Movie against the Fog of War though. Those are my top 3.
I will have to give the The Act of Killing a go.
If I have a favorite genre of doc, it's the ones about outsider artists. In addition to American Movie I love "Monster Road", "In the Realms of the Unreal", "Exit Through the Gift Shop", and my personal favorite "Crumb".
American Movie (1999) has lived rent-free in my head since Y2K.
The filmmaker Chris Smith has gone on to make Fyre, Tiger King, Bad Vegan and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Smith_(filmmaker)
American Movie Anything by the Maysles brothers Cinemania
This film about Richard Batterham, independent potter. It's just half and hour of him talking through his process and his art and what's important to him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN3hRRIO4-c
Harlan County USA (1976) is a great documentary about a coal strike. https://www.criterion.com/films/777-harlan-county-usa
American Movie (1999) is a documentary about a wanna film-maker in the US. In other hands the documentary would have mocked this man and his wild attempts to get his films made. But the documentary ends up being a mostly sympathetic film about struggling against adversity. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/
I am a documentary filmmaker and the one title I am surprised not to have seen here is American Movie. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181288/
True documentary classic- incredible characters, editing, treatment. Just an overall gem.
And if you dig that, check out Home Movie, a follow up from Chris Smith & excellent example of the vignette approach to a feature doc https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275408/
That is also a favorite documentary of mine.
My shortlist of inspiring documentaries for people with startup/gaming mindsets:
- Indie Game
- Startup.com
- American Movie (Mark Borchardt has a thing or two to teach all of us about working hard to make dreams become reality)
- Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters
"When you play the lottery, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But it's better than using drugs or alcohol because when you use drugs or alcohol, you always lose" - "American Movie"
People who don't play the lottery are always so quick to dismiss it. They disregard how accessible it is - you don't need a next-gen console or flat-screen tv, just cash - as they disregard how independently fun it is - you could be sitting alone in a dark room with nothing but a lottery ticket in your hand and be perfectly satisfied with fantasies of winning. It's like discussing guns with people who will never use them.
Let's not get too carried away by sensationalism and look at this from a bird's-eye view: lotteries are great sources of revenue (better than state corporate income taxes? Holy cow!), they are low-health-risk (someone may need treatment for gambling addiction but it never hurts their lungs or livers), and they are easy to scale up and down.
If the regressive-tax-on-the-poor argument is too convincing for you to resist, then here's a solution: register lottery purchases so you can only buy $X in lottery tickets based on your $Y income. Just don't come crying to me when the state comes for your income and property taxes to make up the difference...
American Movie is one of my favorite films ever. "Jesus told me so".
If you haven't seen it, Kevin Kelly's True Films site is a great resource for other gems like it http://truefilms.com/.
Cosmos is wonderful. But I'd mostly rather read to learn, it's faster.
I'm a huge fan of documentaries that aren't mind-expanding and focus on quirky subcultures:
King of Kong - Never cared about professional video gamers, but this film made me care deeply for 90 minutes.
Spellbound - The incredible varied backstories behind the kids in the national spelling bee
Grizzly Man - Don't even know how to describe this one. See Alaska through the eyes of a crazy person.
Monster Camp - About people into live-action roleplaying. The culture clash with the couple on a leisurely stroll through the park that has no idea what's going on around them is one of the all-time great moments in documentaries.
American Movie - Couldn't tell if this was real or Christopher Guest at first. It's real. It's awesome.
I would cast your inspiration net wider than media that is zero or one steps removed from literal programming :)
It's a bit off the wall, but I enjoyed this a lot (American Movie): http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3336241945/
You might like this documentary about Netscape programmers: http://clickmovement.org/coderush
If you only ever watch one film, watch American Movie http://bit.ly/lXSB8X
It's a film about art, entrepreneurialism, and delusion. Also friends and family.