Dorathen Better Late Then Never

ShangLuda Admirable film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

nqure I remember reading reviews, some quite negative, about Chris Waitt's film and I think a few might not have got the conceit; the film is more of a mockumentary, with the audience laughing with and at Waitt; it is the comedy of embarrassment rather than a genuine examination of romantic relationships.First of all, I'd like to put on record that Waitt comes across as a fundamentally good-natured, if lazy, shambling shaggy-dog of a man (shaggy dog story), essentially quite lovable. Compared to the way some men treat women, Waitt is not that bad a person: his main faults appear to be laziness and a lack of commitment.As the film progressed, it became obvious that a lot of the scenes had been set-up (his exasperated producers, a blind-date) and too many of the people inhabit Waitt's media world making you doubt its veracity (one ex is an actress, he ends up finding love with a journalist). It is a piece of guerilla/gonzo film making with the film-maker's mother becoming a character, exasperated at her son's feckless behaviour, with her pithy comments.The first girlfriend, it is eventually revealed, was from Waitt's childhood (eleven), so completely undercutting the adult conversation and our expectations. I don't doubt many of Waitt's former girlfriends refused to appear, but maybe that was more to do with appearing on film than with Waitt himself. The scene with the girlfriend hidden in a hotel room and then giving her scathing comments via a machine obscuring her voice came across as comedic as did the encounter with an ex- in the Indian restaurant; it emerges that since Waitt, she has only gone out with Asian men. It then becomes obvious that the film is sending up both Waitt and romance as he pushes things to the extreme.Halfway through the film, I began to lose interest and decided to catch up the highlights of the Football League Show on another channel before catching the end of the film. It isn't serious enough to deserve full attention.The film does end on a more serious, optimistic note. At the beginning of the film, one ex-girlfriend from his teenage years is asked what she learnt from the end of their relationship and she replies about learning to do things differently and,in a sense, this is the lesson Waitt learns as well as appreciating a former girlfriend and the love she felt for him.The film is faintly reminiscent of John Cusack's role in Nick Hornby's 'High Fidelity', (a more conventionally structured and narrative driven account) also punctuated with moments of embarrassing comedy (the ex-girlfriend traumatised from the break-up).

please-dont-make-indy-5 The premise of this documentary sounded funny. But it soon became clear that there's not much more than the main character goofing around with he's videocam. A womanizer and self-centered mama's boy, I don't know how women sees this character, but as a man I didn't felt any sympathy from him. So not for men, maybe some women find his character cute (as some clearly do in real life), but for rest of us there is not much to see. His gonzo-style methods trying to help himself is done before and funnier and the whole erection problem seemed very fake. At the end this film is just a another way to boost filmmaker's ego. Not funny as a comedy and not touching as a drama.

hey_treacle This documentary starts out interesting enough, the honesty of Waitt and the vicious rejections of his ex girlfriends are disarming and lead us to feel In tail empathy towards the thirty something film maker. From here on in though, as Waitt turns the film from a meditation on failed relationships to a discourse on his impotence, he himself becomes vulgar and comes across as an entirely obnoxious person. Furthermore Waitts interview technique comes across as cold bordering on ignorant and even passive aggressive.Its impossible to tell if this is a persona that the film maker dons to illicit frustrated responses from the participants he tracks down or if this is actually how Waitt is in reality. Its clear that by the time Chris Waitt is staggering the streets in a Viagra induced stupor asking as many girls as he can if they will sleep with him in the most uncharismatic manner that we have lost all empathy for him and completely understand the hostility shown to him at the start of the film. I found myself hoping that one of the girls approached on the street or one of the men with the girls would end up lumping him. Clearly Waitt feels that wielding a boom Mic a la Nick Broomfield gives him the right to be completely offensive. The stunt itself is pre empted by a childish and phony sequence in which Waitt takes six or seven Viagra pills while waiting for the first to kick in, feigning ignorance of what taking a large amount of Viagra might do.As stated Its clear that Chris Waitt has taken a Broomfield / Louis Theroux style approach to his material but he simply does not have the charm to pull it off. The aforementioned film makers are famous about making films about diverse subjects but in the process also making films that say a great deal about themselves and therefore making themselves the principle players in the unfolding drama. Here Waitt has got the balance horribly wrong, he is making a film about himself, so conversely it would have merited the final film to step back and be more objective and let others speak about him. But Throughout the film Waitt discredits the participants (calling one ex girlfriend a psychopath is one such example) and and is constantly pushing his own interpretation about himself. Its is all him and what he wants. This all makes for a very ugly spectacle, entirely self consumed and entirely cold and unflinching. When his behaviour gets notable bad at points in the film Waitt is quick to insert a validation and some ponderous music but it all feels very mechanical, like an inserted unsubtle disclaimer. The only part I did relate to was the end when Chris meets his ex who is now having a child, this seems to be the only time that the mask slips and we see Chris as a sympathetic character. It is a shame that this interview is edited to the point where it is just a very few exchanges between the pair before showing an emotional meltdown. but it is too little too late and the film fails under the weight of all that has gone previous and the final 'happy' ending and new relationship feels trite. disingenuous and unpleasant. What Nathan Barley might have made given a video camera. Gets only minimal marks for being polished.

Mikko Riihimaeki Meet Chris Waitt. He's a thirty-something auteur and amateur, who embarks on a project to catalog his past girlfriends following in the footsteps of Jim Jarmusch and "Broken Flowers" featuring the middle-aged Bill Murray. The end result is funnier and different in other aspects, too. Waitt comes off as a Kurt Cobain lookalike, whose toilet floor is carpeted in pubic hair w/ used toilet paper rolls in the corner unlike a furniture catalog by IKEA. He walks around carrying his furry microphone and baggy-saggy pants like a leftover grunge-wars survivor. His "Swedish" face is, however, only the surface, because things are boiling beneath it. As the events that unfold testify, he's got enough balls to visit a dominatrix, test his street-credibility vs. women, serenade a psychotherapist citing "crack-whores" and "religious virgins" and trip on Viagra like we've never seen it happen. The movie suggests that in the lives of most/many GenXers, there are four recurring factors apart from differences in personal hygiene and CV: a) A lost loved one is a mental skeleton in the closet b) (S)he is targeted at least once for reclamation c) Inevitable failure on this front may lead to creation of wicked senses of humor (as a defense mechanism) and d) other people and one's own projects claim the (wo)man in the end. Lived life and history can not be changed. If our relationships are like bridges, we almost always burn them after saying cogently goodbye. Because of these strengths, I was mildly indignant that the audience seemed to revel only in Waitt's failures and shortcomings on the sexual front. I could think of many girls who wouldn't be his match or worthy of him as a date. I rate this film relatively high since it was part of the LOVE & ANARCHY film festival and fulfilled the criteria of providing both aspects of love and anarchy quite satisfactorily. The movie was a bit like Borat for the thinking woman's circle of friends. Hand-held cameras and weird scenes ruled, you know. Out of that L&A context, I can understand if other people find this movie overdone, childish, annoying or crude.