Some reviews celebrate Something in the Dirt as having a distinctive vision. I found it to be two hours of unbearably boring rambling.
Something in the Dirt Synopsis
Bartender and ex-offender Levi shifts into a dilapidated Los Angeles apartment and befriends gay divorcee John, who lives below him. When both of them encounter an inexplicable occurrence in Levi’s apartment, they decide to film the incidences and create a documentary. The mysterious happenings soon exert a toll on their relationship and mental health, as well as uncover dark secrets from the past.
Snappy Review
This review will be short because frankly, I wouldn’t be able to write much even if my life depended on it.
Throughout most of the two-hour run, I was struggling not to fall asleep. Correspondingly, fighting the urge to just walk out of the cinema too.
It’s a show that gleefully refuses to get anywhere, you see. There’s a premise, a story of sorts, and a quest. but the bulk of the movie consists of little more than Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead chain-smoking and indulgently flaunting their knowledge of wacko conspiracy theories. Think: Two unshaven dudes on a tepid summer night struggling to get smashed and blabbing about what they just watched on Youtube.
Major review sites are showering the show with accolades, though, celebrating its take on the creative process, the thinly veiled criticism of America’s fetish for loony theories, and the plight of social outcasts. I agree that there were these efforts and I suppose it’s only fair to acknowledge how Benson and Moorhead filmed the whole movie on a shoestring budget, with practically no reliance on flashy effects or dramatic tension, maudlin dialogue, etc.
But it was so, so, SO boring. I lumbered out of the screening with no new, no additional awareness of the myriad discussions attempted at. Didn’t help too that whatever “insight” into the creative process presented was stupendously inane to me since I’ve worked in this industry for over two decades.
Again, it was like being forced to listen to two half-stoned dudes going on and on about what they just found online and what they believe they know. What they strongly feel you must know too. (In Singlish parlance, kopitiam talk cock)
This December, were I to write a 2022 Movies That I Regretted Paying Money to Watch list, this snorefest will be the first name on it.
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