SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

MartinHafer This is a very simple documentary. There is no narration, so it's up to the homeowners of five very strange houses to show you around their homes. While this no doubt would bore the pants off some people, I found it fascinating for many reasons. First, it was great to see people who had so much passion for life and for their homes--as well as deep senses of contentment about their lives. Second, each of these people was actually pretty fascinating--perhaps not "normal", but very fascinating. Being welcomed into their worlds was a nice privilege.The five houses consist of a guy who lives in a houseboat and hangs out with gators, an electronic house with tons of push-button gadgets, a family living in an ex-Atlas missile silo, a home completely designed around the many cats of the family and a lady who lives in a tree house in the middle of nowhere in Hawaii. Really interesting people and I would love to see a follow up film showing where they all are now or perhaps highlighting other strange homes.Well done and a great look at some very passionate and weird folks--and I do mean weird in a generally good way! A great little slice of Americana and an important but seldom talked about part of our history and culture.By the way, although his home was the most "normal", I think I would have liked to have visited with the houseboat guy the most. What a cool life. The lady in the Hawaiian wilderness was also amazing and I loved how she holds onto life.

bandw This could have been an excellent movie, but it lacks focus. It deals with some highly unusual people living in some highly unusual houses. After a quick round-robin visit to each house and occupants, that lasts about ten minutes, we know about as much about these people and their houses as we find out in the next hour. We are left with wanting to know more about how these people came to be in their current situations and about the history of their houses. For example, the alligator man says that everything in his house has a sentimental value - then show us some of those things and explain to us what they mean to him.I wanted to see more about the houses themselves - how they are laid out and how the people live in them. The people who live in the old missile silo give us a ten second tour of where the rooms are in their house *from above ground,* and that is it for the overview.These people are satisfying some deep emotions through their living environments and I wanted to know more. Think what Errol Morris would have done with this material.The film indeed has the look of a home movie, so the title is a clever pun.

timnil This documentary is by the same person who did "American Movie" which documented the attempted making of a low budget horror movie. It's a fascinating look at how people re-model their houses to match their personalities. I love quirky documentaries like this, so it was right up my alley. The houses included one that was made out of an abandon missile silo in Kansas - complete with an aging hippie homeowner playing a Native American flute to chase the evil spirits away. There's a retired actress that lives is a hydro-electric powered tree house in the jungles of Hawaii, an alligator wrestling good old boy that lives in a houseboat in the swamps of Louisiana and an uber-geek that has remade an electric house complete with robots. My favorite though, is the family that has completely remade their house in order to let their 11 cats run amok in it. This is a short fun film - if you want a break from heavy, serious stuff, give it a try.

thomdoyle To his credit he's built one 280-pound, 6'8" robot named Arok who can vacuum the carpet, mix drinks, dance, take Polaroid photos and talk, plus two smaller (5' tall) robots, one for the Orland Park Police Department another for the police department in Park Ridge. Before the Ferrari there were three other remote controlled automobiles. Skora says he invented a cordless telephone three years before AT&T came up with theirs. He's built a viewer/telephone that actually operates between his home and that of a friend in Mokena.Skora's home is an electronic fantasy with a 6'-diameter electronic iris door, remote control roll-down shower curtain and a 16'-diameter revolving living room. The house has kitchen cabinets with shelves that go up and down electronically, lights, music and waterfalls that turn on and off by remote control, a wet bar that glides out from a flat wall, electronically-controlled hands that appear out of nowhere to deliver hand soap or swizzle sticks for your drink, a transporter room, Hollywood smoke effects and an easy chair that can be driven --starting, stopping and turning on a dime-- by operating two toggles on the arm rests. And, as they say, that's not all. There are fascinating things too numerous to chronicle around every corner in Skora's house. Most can be operated by simply dialing numbers on a touch-tone phone. "I can operate everything here even if I'm in Tokyo," Skora boasts, making a sweeping motion with his arm to take in his entire residence. What's even more remarkable, from all accounts he's been able to perform that bit of electronic magic for close to thirty years.All of Skora's electronic bells and whistles, from the suit of armor that doesn't just talk to the full-sized female mannequin/floor lamp with a panties lampshade to the, well, bells and whistles, are created with one thing in mind - fun. Ben Skora is nothing if not an elfin prankster. Friends say that if Ben thinks about something he'll build it, but if it can get a laugh, he'll build it faster.