Way
Off Broadway (2001)
And way too late.
"Way Off Broadway" might have been a indie masterpiece
in 1989, but in 2001 it seems horribly trite, standard
and dated. The film concerns (no shit) five 20-something
friends in NYC struggling with adulthood. They are,
in order of cuteness, a musician, a playwright, an actress,
a film student and a literature grad student. All of
them have their typical little 20-something trials and
tribulations, none of them new. The musician has stopped
playing. The playwright has writer's block. The actress
gets put on the casting couch. The film student and
teacher have minor stories by comparison. It's all very
last year and very typical.
I hate - and I mean hate - films about actors and
writers and musicians. But I loathe films about film
students. Thank God these characters don't sit around
and discuss films and craft and pop culture much. There
is some of that but not enough to be pretentious or
to get too annoying. It just shows a real lack of imagination
from writer/director Daniel Kay.
I will tell you that the film is cinematically adept.
It looks professional and is well edited. The acting
is quite good. The music is nice even if it tries way
too hard to be an adult pop soundtrack album. But none
of this can overcome the ho-hum dreariness of the plot
and script. I mean, it's not that we don't like the
characters, we do. It's just that their stories are
so weak and... (I'm going to have to look up "typical"
in the Thesaurus again)... and 90's archetypal.
If there is anything likeable at all about "Way Off
Broadway" it's that actor Forbes March as Jay (he should
change his stage name) seems to enjoy cavorting about
without a shirt. He even consents to a butt shot. His
ass is pretty cute but... you guessed it... typical.
Who am I kidding, this stuff was tired even in 1989.
This Film Reviewed
from the 2001 Austin Film festival!
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Report
Card
Script:
C-
Acting: A-
Cinematography\Lighting: B+
Special Effects\Make Up: A
Music: B-
Final
Grade: C
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