It's time for more AG movies!
This year, I've learned a lot more about how to make a movie, so I thought it would be fun to revisit the AG movies and see what they did right and wrong in the technical department. Today, we're looking at An American Girl: Isabelle Dances Into the Spotlight!
WARNING: THIS CONTAINS A LOT OF FILMMAKER RANTING!
What they got RIGHT:
-Nothing, to be honest.
What they got WRONG:
-Where do I begin? Every aspect of this movie was a complete failure. No one could act, the characters were all unlikable, the plot was boring and had no conflict, the dialogue was wooden and wasn't things people would say in real life, the cinematography zoomed onto random things all the time and was annoying (as well as the editing), and everything felt so fake. The plot felt fake, the characters felt fake, even the writing and directing felt fake.
The fakeness of this movie is the reason why I didn't like it. I like movies with characters I can feel for, with quality filmmaking, and a story that can veer from reality a bit, but has a conflict rooted in realism. In a world where the biggest problem is not being able to do a pirouette, where characters only care for themselves and only deal with the superficial, and speak and act in a manner that doesn't feel like it would be in real life, it wouldn't be real. It would just be some fake utopia. But sadly, that's what writers Jessica O'Toole and Amy Rardin thought us AG fans would want to watch. They treated this project as a formulaic paint-by-numbers piece with stilted writing, and so did director Vince Marcello as he directed the actors to act like people in a perfect little glass world. But the world isn't perfect or glass, and that kind of approach isn't a good one for filmmaking.
In conclusion: This movie belongs on the Hallmark Channel.
Old Rating (circa 2016): 0
New Rating: 0