I don't know if you guys know Dave "Crazy Legs" McGinty, but he is one of the guys at the library who makes movies in his spare time. A couple years ago, he made a film entitled A Short Film About Disappointment. I don't think it is related to the obviously fascinating book discussed in the above discussion group, but it was the most depressing film that I have ever seen in my short, gorgeous life.
They call him "Crazy Legs" because, in the middle of just about anything, his legs will suddenly kick out and do crazy ass shit. In the middle of job interviews. On first dates. Standing at the urinal. No one wants to be involved romantically with a guy like that. People want him dead. Just straight up dead.
As a result, Dave got into making movies with the guys at the library.
The thing is, Dave tends to "wander off" on his own. He can be with a group of geeks, with their sticky-ass candy-eating geek hands, at the Museum of Science, and he'll just wander off and look at different exhibits. And then he gets into trouble. His legs kick out, he knocks over a valuable sculpture, and those hard-ass musuem cops come in and it is one baton blow to the head after another. I think he took a total of thirty-six. He has been walking sideways ever since.
When he wanders off, that is when trouble happens. When he makes movies with the other guys, he does okay, but this time he wandered off on his own and made a movie on his own. That movie was A Short Film About Disappointment.
What happens in this film is that a character named "Barney," who is played by Dave McGinty, gets into social situations, is rejected, and goes home and sits in his living room by himself. This is more stark than it initially sounds, mind you. His living room is stark. There is nothing on the walls. The couch is brown. The sitting chair is old. The carpet is worn. The lone window is dirty and a perverted old man is looking through it with an expression on his face that makes you fairly certain that he is pleasuring himself down below. Objectionable way to live, to say the least.
Dave's first film, mind you, was Mister Littlepants Goes to the Moon, so you know the kind of mind this man has. He's a pretty good fuck, though. He loves reverse cowgirl and knows how to manage the saddle. Meow.
In our first sequence, "Barney" goes to what appears to be a college class. He sits down in a chair and everyone ignores him. Then someone kicks his chair from behind and mutters "faggot." Barney gets up, drops his books, and runs out of the class. What the absolute fuck? Who makes movies like that?
It is hard to watch, honestly. My mouth was agape and I know Barney personally. He goes out to a college party in the next sequence. He is standing against the wall, nervously holding a beer, in his fucking Sunday best, and someone bumps the beer out of his hand. Barney apologizes and is then taken outside and beaten up. He goes home and sits on his raggedy-ass couch again. I mean, what the absolute fuck?
In the third scene, he is for some reason trying to enter a bicycle race. He has a child's mountain bike and they are all riding those Lance Armstrong numbers. They are laughing at him. He tries to assert himself. He is dragged to the side of a cliff by bicycle people and thrown over. He lands about two feet below (there was a shelf), rips his pants, goes home and sits in his stark, lonely living room alone. I just can't deal.
I guess it is sort of like a Woody Allen movie, to be perfectly honest with you. I give it one star out of five. I only give it the one star because I know Dave personally.
Be wary of films made by guys who work at the library. They are a mixed bag.