It's all right, it's okay...uhhhhh....CUT!
8/3/00
Well, you can't help but think of Ed Wood Jr., although the comparison is not entirely apt. Mark Borchardt, the subject of AM, has more talent, and more ambition, than poor old Ed, and Wood did manage to complete several pictures, horrible though they were. What the two have in common is a passion for movies and moviemaking, and a less than idyllic personal life. This is what makes Mark's story watchable, through the pathos: he's an ordinary Joe who loves the movies.
It's not a completely successful documentary. Mark sometimes seems a little too eager, too self-aware, too close to acting and right on the edge of self-parody. The filmmakers are not interested in making Mark especially sympathetic (his friends and family don't always hold him in the highest regard), and there's a certain queasiness as you find yourself laughing at him from time to time. But ultimately you come to know that they do care about this guy, and in a beautiful ending you find out his family does as well. The success of the film is that by the end you care too.