Local Legends

MOVIE #1,716 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 06.10.24 MovieJeff on Motern: A FARLEY/ROXBURGH DIRECTOR FOCUS This is the second (and last) feature in the Motern catalog that does not feature a writing or directing credit from Charlie Roxburgh. But unlike Obtuse Todd, this Matt Farley joint is the definitive MATT FARLEY production, meta to the point of being part-documentary. Presented in black-and-white and featuring chapter intertitles, this is clearly — in part — an homage to Kevin Smith’s Clerks. My feelings on that dude are pretty clear at this point (he's the only filmmaker I've reviewed to garner multiple ZERO-score critiques, and I vow to never watch another Kevin Smith movie again unless I have exhausted LITERALLY every other film in existence). So when Local Legends leans into the quippy, Smith-aping dialogue sequences, it’s among the worst this filmography has ever had to offer. For example…

But the autobiographical elements are really good and there’s some classic Motern flourishes — like the running joke about Sharon Scalzo’s character thinking she is a big Billy Joel fan but only owns the three Greatest Hits collection CDs — are also great. If it had only been that + the self-referential histories and mythologizing (there’s also a great and all-too-brief Kevin McGee as Kevin McGee performance), this would have been a top-tier feature. Sadly, that’s not the case.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,715 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,717 ⫸

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The adventures of Matt Farley as he spends a few weeks preparing for a big comedy show in Manchester, NH. It was released on July 30, 2013.