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Found Footage movies, or “Hey, we just found this DV tape of mysterious doings!” movies, are a tricky business.  They offer short-term perks such as an instant point-of-view for our characters.  The mark of great director is the ability to put the audience in the mindset of its lead character.  Found Footage movies provide this service free of charge.  One of the first movies to be shot all POV was “Lady in the Lake” in 1947, a detective story that looks like a primitive first-person shooter.  The downside of this all is it becomes painfully arduous after ten minutes, even in the best ones.  “Lady in the Lake” is cute for a second, followed by over an hour of blinding torture.  Dizziness abounds, and the script usually bends under the burden of having to justify WHY THE CAMERA IS STILL ON.

Another short-term perk is a lived-in verite mood to the movie.  In lay terms, everyone feels “real.”  But I’m going to smack this down too.  “Real” dialogue usually translates into “shit” dialogue or “boring cocksucking” dialogue.  “BLAIR WITCH PROJECT” is nothing but “turn the camera off,” “guys, GUYYYYYS!”, “hey over here,” “wait up,” “where are you?,” “oh my god oh my god oh my god.”  It’s dialogue out of a box.  “CLOVERFIELD”‘s dialogue drones on like a busted oscillating fan.  A lot of this is because the director lets the actors go off script and improvise.  This sounds good on paper, and it’s become a common practice in almost all movies now.  Actors are often heard in magazine interviews glowing about how great the director was because he freed them from the script and just let them have fun.  Again, good on paper, but as Krusty the Clown once said, “Ugggggh, this is always death.”

Most actors aren’t truly skilled in improvisation enough to take a situation and breathe life into it.  I know we’re hurting for good writers lately, but we should be encouraging better dialogue, not more fucking ad libbing.  And it ends up just being a crutch for lazy writers who just plug in “they ad lib about how crazy the thing just happened was.”  I swear, I feel like I’ve read that in a script before.

So, it’s with extreme caution that I endorse the new trailer for the latest found footage movie, “CHRONICLE.”  It’s a found footage superhero movie.  I won’t spoil the trailer for you, because on first viewing, knowing nothing, it’s a terribly exciting watch.

Having said that, and now you having watched that, the second viewing of the trailer?  Not so hot.  The goosebumps went away, and all I could hear was “Andrew, over here!” “Hey wait up!” “Bling bling!” “Aw snap!” “What are you DOING?” “You have to stop this” “Go go go” “Run!” and my least favorite movie chestnut of all time: “This isn’t a GAME!”

I absolutely detest when characters say “This isn’t a game!”  It’s said in roughly four movies a year, no one says that in life, it means nothing, it reveals nothing, the person they’re saying it to never thought it was a game, it makes me tune out, and it’s as welcome to find as mold on strawberries.

Anyone within the sound of my voice, never ever ever write “This isn’t a game” in your script.  If you do, I put a pox on your home.  Seriously, ok, this isn’t a game.

And while we’re at it, throw this line down a bottomless well: “It isn’t a curse.  It’s a GIFT.”

So, “CHRONICLE” doesn’t come out until February 2012, which should give the actors plenty of time to get their press junket sound bites ready to go.  Might I suggest “so refreshing” and “able to loosen up” and “really make it my own.”  To those of you thinking of doing a Found Footage movie, I wish you well, but I offer you this word of caution:  Found Footage movies are at best a 6 out of 10, and after that, they have the shelf life of bananas.