Home Movie (2002)

This reminded me quite a lot of "Gates of Heaven" (by Errol Morris) in that there's an idea -- here it's unusual homes, in GoH it's pet cemeteries -- and the camera is simply trained on those involved. The participants are only slightly different that the average joe. They're not extraordinary, they're just slightly quirky -- and that's not quite enough to sustain interest over the course of a feature. Once I'd gotten a look at the homes and the residents of each, I wasn't too interested in hearing them yammer on about it. The cat family and the freeloader in the electric house especially tried my patience, though I wouldn't mind spending an afternoon with the houseboat dude.

I really enjoyed "American Movie: The Making of Northwestern," another of Chris Smith's documentaries. There, however, it was more than just the idea that was intriguing -- there was a character on whom to hang the film (Mark Borchardt).

C