I had a couple of laughs, but I watched the movie at 2x speed and it still dragged on for way too long. Exactly what I expected when Andy said he wanted a 20 minute short, but ended up with 4 hours of raw and 1.5 hours finished.
It's a classic trap for when you are both the director and the editor. There's a reason why director's cuts are always way longer, they can't bear to part with their hard-filmed scenes - plus, they want the audience to see the full, lingering takes.
The Dented Zone could afford to let shots linger because it was a horror film. This is a Christmas comedy, and it's almost 2026, you have to be quicker and snappier.
Some examples from the workout montage:
I laughed here because I saw the label on the box DSP is sitting next to. I think I even paused it to look more closely. Big W.
Then, not only do they zoom in on the box - already partially ruining the fun of noticing it. They then, cut to a separate shot of the box, so you really really can't miss it. And THEN they show it AGAIN in the bench pressing shot. L.
We also don't need to see every step of DSP's tard workout when the joke is "hahaha he has small retard weights, get it?" It should have just been three quick shots with the same pattern, like this:
Set-up, DSP struggling
Punchline, it's a toy kettlebell
Cut, shoot the same shot with the dumbbell and barbell. Then, move on.
Instead, we had to watch the whole exercise routine. The joke has passed, stop lingering on the same dang thing.
I could go on listing shots that go on for too long / are redundant, but I want to address the excuse Andy gave on stream instead: "we thought it would be fun to torture the audience." The thing is, it would be way funnier if the rest of the movie was quick and full of snappy jokes, and then suddenly you're watching DSP jerk off for several minutes.
I enjoyed the Manager Phil scenes and all the callbacks to that one animation of Manager Phil selling a pizza party to Cyrax and his other lolcow employees. A lot of fat still needed to be trimmed from the shots, but it was pretty good. However, I feel there was a missed opportunity when Phil goes "I handled that so well"
I wanted a smash cut to the employee jumping out the window and being caught by the building's suicide-prevention nets, and screaming that he wants to die. I really thought that's where they were going.
Quick positives:
The alt-universe Casino is kino.
I liked Old Gay Husband.
This hospital shot fulfills the expectations I had for the My Little Retard's First Home Gym prop. The first time we see Old Phil's shirt, all we see is "please be patient I have..." and then the covers are pulled back during the death scene to reveal that Phil died because of AIDS. W.
I doubt either of the Casino boys read the thread anymore, but Psycho if you could please forward my notes to the director, I hope to see even better kino.
The random black guy stepping in as Kat's new girlfriend was legit funny.
imo it would have been funnier if it wasn't a random black guy, but either LTG or Tevin.
I did enjoy the nod to Citizen Kane.
It was kino, and it might be how Phil actually dies in real life.
