[NOTE: The original video on Davis Aurini’s YouTube channel was taken down shortly after the post went up. So I’ve embedded the version that is, as of this moment, up on the director’s YouTube channel. I”d recommend that you download this for your permanent collection.]
Ok, so I’ve been working on a post about the latest ridiculous doings of our friends Davis Aurini and JordanOwen42 — the not-so-dynamic duo who’ve been desperately begging for money to make their Totally Serious documentary about how evil Anita Sarkeesian is. But then I watched this, and it’s too good not to post on its own.
This is Lust in the Time of Heartache, a short “philosophical” film written and produced, and just posted on teh Interwebs, by Mr. Aurini. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to be a comedy, but I was laughing at it from beginning to end.
There’s nothing about this film that’s not terrible and ridiculous, from the choice of fonts in the title sequence to the names of the characters as revealed in the closing credits.
Where even to start in criticizing this mess? The, er, “acting?” The pretentious, pseudo-philosophical voiceover, delivered by Mr. Aurini himself? The shrill, frantic — yet somehow also meandering — music that plays almost continuously from beginning to end? The ludicrously unconvincing fight choreography? The ill-fitting suits? The evo psych? The dawning recognition that this whole thing is meant to depict how Aurini sees himself in our “fallen” world?
The fact that this ten minute film credits a “parkour consultant?”
I’m going to borrow a couple of lines from Pauline Kael’s famous review of the legendarily stinky 1970 film Song of Norway because they offer a pretty fair assessment of this one as well:
The movie is of an unbelievable badness. … You can’t get angry at something this stupefying; it seems to have been made by trolls.
She means “under the bridge”-style trolls, not the modern kind.
Oh, and the sound is awful, too. NOTE: Dialogue is supposed to be louder than the background noises.
Anyway, just watch it. It’s only ten minutes long. And definitely stay for the final credits. You’ll see why.
But hey, don’t take my word for it. Read this glowing review, from some dude on YouTube:
Excellent writing that encompasses the transitions from one cinematic style to the next. At first I was concentrating on the technical problems and lackluster performances, however, after about 5 mins in, the pacing kicked up a notch. Well done, sir.
