Netflix pick for 4/16/13 – ‘Archie’s Final Project’

“Archie’s Final Project” is an excellent crazy little movie about a very creative but also very depressed high school kid who decides to make his own suicide the subject of a film class project. Sounds like fun, no? Well keep on reading!

From my original review of “Archie’s Final Project“ (which at the time was titled “My Suicide“) from the 2010 Florida Film Fest:

“My Suicide, directed by David Lee Miller, is the type of film that can usually only be seen at regional film festivals. Full of odd and interesting choices, this movie about a high school kid’s planned suicide threatens to be merely a very bloated student short, but in the end flat out works as a very kinetic and intense film…The subject matter is not what will keep the movie from theatrical distribution or free from home video obscurity. Heathers all ready explored the allure of teenage suicide, and even recently movies like Suicide Club and World’s Greatest Dad honed in on similar themes. Instead, the thing that will keep My Suicide out of shopping mall multiplexes is the presentation. The movie starts with Archie recreating a scene from The Deer Hunter with the use of a green screen and animation. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, a very hyper tone is established as the audience will be bombarded with a slick multimedia presentation that perfectly replicates Archie’s angst-ridden and overloaded mental state. All sorts of editing and filming techniques are employed throughout the movie, and though it threatens to fall apart, this crazy tone and style is actually sustained really well for about 75 to 80 minutes, before the inevitably heavy final act story elements come in.”

I watched this movie again when it was finally made available on the good ole Netflix Instant after not playing those mall cineplexes (who called that lack of theatrical distribution? Who called it? Me, that’s who. And probably thousands of other people), and it’s just as good and fun the second time around. So if you want to know more, read my original slightly spoilery review which is linked all the way up there at the top of this article, or just click this link and get to watching.