Man in the Chair

Impressions before seeing it
This was playing on the Sundance Channel one night, and I was on board because it was about a disgruntled old man helping a teen make a student film, and I like stuff about filmmaking.

How was it?
Well, all of the actual filmmaking done in this movie is summed up in a montage that lasts about 30-60 seconds. The rest of the movie is spent on Cameron's (Michael Angarano, who played young William at the beginning of Almost Famous) friendship with Flash (Christopher Plummer), an awful lot of pre-production on their movie that isn't really that interesting, and then takes a left turn and becomes about the poor conditions of retirement homes and how old people are generally mistreated and forgotten. Don't get me wrong, that is a serious and very real issue that needs to be addressed, but I came to see a movie about filmmaking and instead wound up watching a melodramatic indie movie that tries too hard to prove that it's an indie movie. I suppose the one saving grace is the small amount of references to movies that the characters make, which is marginally cool if you're a movie lover and have seen them, but it's mostly namedropping so you don't have to have seen them, and it's not enough to make me want to watch this movie again.

Recommendation
Yeah, don't bother watching this for the joy of seeing people make a movie, because you'll be highly disappointed. But if you want to see a sappy drama about a boy and a group of his senior friends, be my guest.