I saw this movie at a film festival last night and was amazed! It is only ten minutes in length but after watching it, I felt I had the satisfaction of watching a feature length film, yet I also felt as if I had just blinked an eye because I was drawn into the story so quickly and completely.
I went to the festival because I saw the director's (Todd Albertson) feature film "Soliloquy" last year and was curious as to what this film would be like. "Soliloquy" was more intellectual humor than The Proverb, which appealed on more of a guttural level, but that didn't disappoint me a bit! The film is a mock-umentary about a reporter, a pompous Dan Rather-type who takes himself a bit too seriously, doing man on the street interviews about the meaning of a proverb for the religion segment of a network news channel. The lively cast and hilarious script kept the audience and me laughing the whole time. Scott Waara (a Tony Award winning actor & singer from "The Most Happy Fella"), in particular, steals the show. A great scene involves Nancy Stafford (who co-starred on the "Mattlock" TV show with Andy Griffith) feeding cheese wiz to her on-screen boyfriend. Lauren Roman (who I remember from "All My Children") also gives a gut-wrenchingly funny performance.
The film manages to paint an affectionate portrait of its quirky characters without ever losing sight of the ridiculousness of their needy world. I would have guessed that Christopher Guest was involved in this project because it reminds me a lot of "Waiting for Guffman," "Best In Show," and "A Mighty Wind," but he was not. To add another twist to this film, it was done experimentally in one week (from idea to finished product) with no budget. Everybody contributed his or her time for just the fun of doing it. What a team! I hope they all work together again like Christopher Guest's people do. If this were a feature, it would win big time awards!
To quote Lawrence Welk in summing up the entire film, it is "Wunderbar, Wunderbar, Wunderbar!!!"
