Self-Absorbed Monsters

I made it through fifteen minutes of this film and I had enough. There wasn’t one moment of humility. Not one moment of self-deprecation. Not one moment where the “artistic” worth of the two main subjects was questioned. In fact, the damn thing was a selfish and humorless affair. I felt like I was stuck in a DUMBO hipster hellhole.

The level of self-absorption, narcissism, and self-entitlement contained in Four Eyed Monsters appalled me. Do these two kids not know anything of humility? I understand that this film was a hit at Slamdance. But is this the best that the emerging generation of Internet filmmakers can offer us? Begging for money for their precious pretentious nonsense as if they are entitled to it? Fawning in such a self-absorbed show for the cameras and failing to give us one goddam whit of humanity about the growing development of online relationships? Jean-Luc Godard did this kind of documentary many times before and, compared to these kids, he’s the humblest filmmaker now working in cinema. That’s saying something.

Maybe I’m becoming that grumpy old bastard shouting at the kids to get off my lawn, but, as much as I look out and try to support work by new artists, Four Eyed Monsters is about the most solipsistic cinema I’ve had the misfortune to sit a quarter of the way through. Imagine 70 minutes of lolcats in cinematic form. Sure, it’s cute for the first minute. But can you really sit there and take it for 70 minutes?

Nobody’s going to say it. Because these kids have amassed a tremendous credit card debt. Nobody’s going to say it. Because it’s the dream that everybody wants: to be a self-sufficient artist.

It’s impossible to create after working a nine-to-five job? What a bunch of bullshit.

Glam rock is back, boys and girls. But it’s worse than it was in the 1970s. Because where the glam rock artists realized that their stage presence was a pretense and that there was compartmentalization between this presence and the real life, these new glam rock amateurs, in the form of Arin and Susan, do not.

And the hell of it is that they will be rewarded for their crass irresponsibilities, both fiscal and artistic.

5 Comments

  1. Damn dude. Only saw 15 minutes eh? I suppose that’s what Andy Warhol allots. I guess you got your money’s worth. What you didn’t get the chance to see are all those things you fault the movie for. I understand that this type of filmmaking is a bit much for some, but jeez, if your going to rip on something, at least do your part to see it through. You are left without any of the tensions resolved, you are lambasting from the depths of that very emotional tension the film sets up. Whether it does the job of resolving that tension, I suppose you’ll never know.

  2. It’s too bad you stopped at 15 minutes, because there is an absolutely hysterical(ly bad) scene right around 17 minutes.

  3. It may not be “impossible,” but I’d rather be able to spend my work day creating rather than punching a time clock for a job that pays the rent and is otherwise meaningless to me. Wouldn’t you?

  4. If I reviewed a book after reading 1/4 of it, I’d expect to be called on it. I’m not saying; I’m just saying.

    You may be right, as I have yet to see any of it.

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