Official Rejection (2009)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Great Film overall

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

As someone who has visited a couple of film festivals, I have always been curious about how they find the films for the festivals. This film lets you in on some of the secrets and shows you just how competitive it is. It's interesting, but only really for hard-core indie film fans. You could probably add another star or two, if you're a filmmaker yourself and this is more your milieu.

"Official Rejection" is a very entertaining and educational movie about the struggles of two independent movie-makers. Inspired by their own real life experiences, writer-director Paul Osborne and director Scott Storm have created a small but very effective masterpiece movie. Using a documentary-style method of storytelling, the movie focuses on the official (and unofficial) types of problems the movie-makers face, as they attempt to take their movie "Ten 'Till Noon" from one film festival circuit to another.The movie (Official Rejection) also features interviews from some well known former and / or current independent film-makers such as Kevin Smith and others. "Official Rejection" highlights the fact that for independent film-makers, making the movie is the easiest part. After that, they have to take their movies from one film festival to another, and convince the film festival committee to show their movies to the audience present there. Hang on, this is not the only problem they face. The movie-makers have to pay for the press kits, promotional material, and their own travel costs.There is a lot of "dirty politics" and malpractices involved when a film festival committee decides which movies to show and which ones to reject. I am not saying this ; this is what the movie portrays to its viewers. Also, sometimes the festival committee members force movie-makers to buy all the tickets to their own film ( I hope this particular dirty practice has been eradicated / stopped ; If not, I hope some type of law is created soon to prevent film festivals from bullying / forcing movie-makers to buy all the tickets themselves.Paul Osborne and Scott Storm have tackled a serious subject in this movie, but they have done it with a nice blend of wit, style and fun. I loved this movie and will promote it to viewers for the rest of my life.

What a missed opportunity. These guys had a perfect chance to really dig deep into the politics and B.S. that goes on behind the scenes at the biggest film festivals in the United States. Upon renting this I expected a little "investigative journalism" to back up many of their claims and complaints regarding the politics and the favoritism towards major studios, big stars and sponsors that goes on behind closed doors at Sundance and other major festivals. Instead, we get a group of filmmakers (specifically Scott Storm, touring the festival circuit with his unwatchable film "Ten 'Til Noon") whose sense of entitlement knows no boundaries. One of the questions brought up by one of the subjects was (and I'm paraphrasing here) "just because you can make a make a movie, doesn't mean you should make a movie". One would have hoped when they were making "Ten 'Til Noon" they would have considered this very thing. This group seems to go on and on wondering why they aren't getting the attention and accolades they obviously feel they deserve, just because they made a movie. It was nauseating to say the least. What was even worse than their sense of entitlement was how disgusting these guys acted in front of their own cameras in regards to not only their opinions of many of the festivals and the people that curate and run them, but also how they basically made fun of the gift bags, accommodations and their hospitality. The same can be said about their unfunny sarcastic commentary regarding celebrities, many of who were gracious enough to appear on camera, yet the use voice over to basically make fun of their subjects. It disgusted me. In the end, I'm glad I watched this because now I know to steer of any movie or project these filmmakers are ever involved in. They don't deserve my hard earned money. They need to learn a little about something call "humility". The only time you see a modicum of humility from these filmmakers is when Scott Storm "fakes" it when accepting an award for his film... only to make fun of the very award on camera moments later. Avoid this film.

I was impressed w/ what Paul Osborne and his team were able to do w/ this film. Of course, if you've been involved in the Indie film scene for any period of time, the idea that the fest circuit is a bit of a scam has been pretty well known for a long time. Never the less, makes for a fun and engaging watch still.I was astounded and flabbergasted at some of the absurd naiveté (and stupidity) of some of the filmmakers, in particular Blayne Weaver.... Seriously bro? Why would you even bother flying from LA to Chicago to attend the 2nd annual Chicago Indiefest? Chicago Int FF, yes, Chicago Underground (CUFF) maybe, but some mickey mouse fest no one's ever heard of? Chicago's a great town but talk about walking around blind w/o a cane, not to mention emails like 'your film may be pulled if you don't sell it out..." I may love, and have roots, in the NY Metropolitan area but ask me if I'd fly from LA to NY to attend the Ozone Park film festival, come on:) What that whole scene in Chicago speaks to, as well as the festival circuit in general, is this self aggrandizing, ego stroke that many Indie filmmakers are looking for. Something the OR filmmakers seemed unaware of is the fact that so many of these scam, mediocre festivals exist because there's an endless supply of self serving, ego maniacal saps who want to get in on the circle jerk of saying, "hey, I made a film, check it out." At a certain point filmmakers have to look in the mirror and be realistic about their place in the Industry, if any at all.