Mario Makes a Movie

The pieces should seem familiar. A noble but ne'er-do-well teacher. Students pulled from the last photos of Diane Arbus. Rustic 8mm aesthetics. But instead of assembling these pieces into a neatly wrapped gift from the Hallmark store, Deutsch sets them ablaze through subtle, clever turns of narration. Mario Makes a Movie is an indictment of filmmaking and filmmakers, which spares neither subject, nor author, nor audience. And while no one is beyond contempt, the creative process still seems to offer some relief, even in the hands of the hopeless.