My Big Fat Independent Movie

My Big Fat Independent Movie
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Philip Zlotorynski
Produced by	Chris Gore
Written by	Chris Gore Adam Schwartz
Starring	Pauly Shore Jason Mewes Clint Howard Paget Brewster
Music by	Joe Kraemer Jeremy Sweet (uncredited)
Cinematography	Scott Peck
Editing by	Philip Zlotorynski
Distributed by	Anchor Bay Entertainment
Release date(s)	September 30, 2005 (2005-09-30)
Running time	80 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$3 million

My Big Fat Independent Movie is a 2005 independent film produced and written by film journalist Chris Gore spoofing well-known independent films,^[1] such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Memento, Swingers, Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, Amelie, Reservoir Dogs, Pi, The Good Girl, Run Lola Run, and El Mariachi. My Big Fat Independent Movie was eventually acquired by Anchor Bay Entertainment distribution and the film was released on DVD. Broadcast cable rights were picked up by CBS Corporation for Showtime, The Movie Channel and Sundance Channel.

Synopsis

The film begins with a black man molesting a white man who has trouble remembering events for more than 15 minutes at a time. The film then cuts forward in time to two talkative hitmen, Sam (Neil Barton) and Harvey (Eric Hoffman), who mistakenly believe Johnny Vince (Darren Keefe), a hipper-than-thou swingin' hepcat and band trombone player, to be the third member of their gang, assembled by their evil crime boss to pull a "botched robbery" in Las Vegas. Along the way, they take a beautiful hostage – the lovely, desperate and lonely cashier Julianne (Paget Brewster). Little do they know that she will forever change their pathetic lives. During the journey, the foursome encounter a variety of characters inspired by famous independent films, including a bald genius, a forgetful thug, a jogging red-head, a bound and gagged girl, rabbis on a mission, lots of lesbians, Project Greenlight's Pete Jones, a crazed though well-dressed mechanic (Clint Howard), a horny answering machine (Jason Mewes), a naive mariachi, an obnoxious practical-joking love-struck French girl, and finally Pauly Shore as himself.

Reception

My Big Fat Independent Movie earned only $4,655 in box office receipts during its domestic run^[2] with an estimated budget of $3,000,000.^[3] The film was poorly received by the consensus of critics who reviewed the film, receiving a 23% rotten rating over at Rotten Tomatoes.^[4] Internet debate soon erupted over the film's lowbrow treatment of independent film classics and caused backlash from die-hard independent film fans.^[5] Chris Parry, entertainment journalist and film critic for efilmcritic.com, found that the movie targeted films that were too well liked by its intended audience, and a larger (more mainstream) audience wouldn't recognize the referenced films.^[5] Before its limited domestic release, the film had been pre-screened on the festival circuit^[5] including Cinequest, South by Southwest,^[6] San Diego Film Festival, Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival, Worldfest Houston, and the Temecula Valley Film Festival, where it won best feature.^[7][1][8][9]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Catsoulis, Jeannette (November 25, 2005). "Film in review; My Big Fat Independent Movie - An Exhaustive Indie Spoof". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E2DE1731F936A15752C1A9639C8B63. Retrieved January 28, 2010. 
2. ^ "My Big Fat Independent Movie". Box Office Mojo. http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mybigfatindependentmovie.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-10. 
3. ^ "My Big Fat Independent Movie". IMDB.
4. ^ "My Big Fat Independent Movie". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved January 28, 2010. ("23%")
5. ^ ^{a b c} Parry, Chris (March 13, 2005). "My Big Fat Independent Movie". efilmcritic.com. http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8866. Retrieved March 10, 2010. 
6. ^ Diaz, Victor (October 10, 2005). "SXSW Film Fest kicks off Friday night". News 8 Austin. http://www.news8austin.com/content/top_stories/default.asp?ArID=132932. Retrieved January 28, 2010. 
7. ^ "Temecula Valley International Film Festival 2005: Best Feature Film Winner.". IMDB. Retrieved January 28, 2010.
8. ^ "'My Big Fat' is a big fat joke and a parody". The Detroit News. November 4, 2005. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=DTNB&s_site=detnews&f_site=detnews&f_sitename=Detroit+News%2C+The+(MI)&p_multi=DTNB&p_theme=gannett&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=10DB4CFE07A4C1B0&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM. Retrieved January 28, 2010. "Crude, dumb, mean-spirited and occasionally very funny, [it] takes swipe after swipe at the pretensions of the independent film industry and, as with most crude, dumb and mean-spirited comedies, it can't help but connect here and there." 
9. ^ Newton, Robert (January 24, 2006). "New on DVD". Cinematical.com. http://www.cinematical.com/2006/01/24/new-on-dvd-the-aristocrats-flightplan-thumbsucker/. Retrieved January 28, 2010. "This occasionally hilarious spoof...has its share of things that make you go "d'oh!", but it moves fast enough to forget most of them." 

External links

• My Big Fat Independent Movie at the Internet Movie Database
• My Big Fat Independent Movie at AllRovi
• My Big Fat Independent Movie at Rotten Tomatoes