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alt.sex (2001)
Settle down you perverts. I'm not reviewing a porn flick. Not today anyway. alt.sex is an indie comedy about trying to finding true love with the help or hindrance of the internet. It's an excellent example of why a good script is more important than a big budget and/or name actors. It has neither going for it but still manages to tell a solid story while providing the audience plenty to laugh at.
The film revolves around John (John MacLeod), who has been dumped by his domineering girlfriend and now forlornly searches for love in every conceivable way. His friends and co-workers toss him advice but most of the time it's just to have some more fun at his expense. He tries a dating service but has trouble forgetting the high price tag. He tries going to bars but doesn't find much success using card tricks to attract women. The problems go on and on and he gets more lonely and frustrated with each failure.
Meanwhile at work, John has to deal with a prankster coworker who keeps making porn pop up at inconvenient times. Plus his email server gets hacked by a psychopath he ran into in a chatroom. John is painfully low on luck and needs a bit of help. One of his friends, the company's system administrator, tries to help him out by creating a list of most compatible mates by hacking into a variety of databases around the country. Considering John's track record, you can guess how well that turns out. MacLeod gives a nice lovable loser type of feel to the character, the kind of guy everyone likes but who never gets the girl. It's easy to relate to him because most of us suffer similar awkward moments, lapses in judgement and shaky confidence.
This is a very funny film. The great majority of comedies that emerged in 2001 weren't anywhere near as amusing as this one. The humor runs the gamut from low brow jokes about those extreme videos you see advertised late at night to fairly sharp commentary on dating. The humor isn't strictly sex based either. The film has an almost surrealistic style that leaves pretty much anything open for a gag. Take for example John's first date from a dating service. He just shelled out serious cash for this and hallucinates that his date has hair or clothes made from dollar bills. It keeps itself just grounded enough in reality for the surreal visual gags to still have some meaning though. The script is well written and finds plenty of humor in all manner of subjects in everyday life. All the little jokes add up considerably over the course of the film and keep the laughs flowing pretty evenly.
The film looks surprisingly good considering its ultra-low budget of around $15,000. Some of that comes from shooting entirely in donated locations. But part of it also comes from good camera work it too. What really sells the film though is the easy relaxed manner of the actors. For the most part they don't feel like they're acting. Instead it has the feel of eavesdropping on a group of friends. It's often said that you can often tell how well a movie is working by how much the actors seem to be enjoying themselves. If that's an accurate measuring stick then this movie is succeeding very nicely because this cast seems to be having a blast.
Writer/director Eric Bickernicks has done a nice job with his first feature film. You'll probably have trouble finding it at a local theater but if the opportunity presents itself I'd recommend catching it. My suggestion is to check out the movie's official website which will tell you anything you want to know about it, from how it was made to where it shows. Hopefully somebody will see this movie and give the man a shot at making more films.
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