I’m all for the full fledge devotion of inspiring young and creative talent. I also am very passionate about the arts; so when I heard about the television show entitled “The Chair” I was enthralled. “The Chair” is an experimental reality program which pits two first time directors against one another. The two directors (Shane Dawson & Anna Martemucci) are given the same script, shooting schedules, and location. In the a very short amount of time they must; assemble a crew, rework the script in anyway they see fit, and make a feature length movie for only $650k.

“The Chair” then documents the process for the first time directors, from long windy days – to the budgetary concerns, and so forth. Then at the end of the season viewers could vote for the movie they thought was the better movie. ”Not Cool” was the clear victor (and I don’t think by filmmaking standards) I felt by marketing standards. Shane Dawson has 500+ million Instagram & Twitter followers. While the other director, Anna Martemucci, has none. So what it really came down to was marketability – not filmmaking.

“Not Cool”, described by “Chair” executive producer Zachary Quinto, is “a vapid waste of time” and boy was he right. While the films offensive crude-and lewd behavior is indeed overwhelming.

I was rather confused why for the films 85 minute skimpy running time, they tried to be “over the top” serious. Raunchy comedies can be well done (see “Superbad” or “American Pie”) however, they have to know when it’s appropriate to balance the humor – and when not too. First time director Shane Dawson suffers from the ladder.

The story settles around a group of friends who reunite over Thanksgiving break from college. Former prom king Scott (Dawson) is dumped by his, parcour x-games rated, girlfriend. He finds solace in Tori (Cherami Leigh) and begin to spark a connection from when they last met in high school.

While the script itself is “technically” (by Writers Guild standards) written by Dan Schoffer..it should be well known that Dawson, and company were allowed to tweak the script as much as they could. Basically rewriting in a sense, just without the credit. So we never really will know how the other script was. What we do know is that Dawson should never make the leap to feature length films again, unless he can surrcomb with better material. Spoiler Alert: A homeless man eats his own feces… yeah disgusting.

The vulgarity, and offensive humor can only go so far, to the point of laughing at how miserable of a time I was having. The script’s pace is sloppy, and the editing is just as atrocious, I never believed any chemistry between Dawson and Leigh, because the pace is so uneven, and bounces back and forth struggling to find a purpose in any of it’s underwritten characters.

The only noticeable praise (if that’s what you wanna call it) I can bestow is in that of lead star Cherami Leigh, whom serves as a nice reprieve in the film – indulging us little by little. She is really good, while Dawson tries to play it cool – but evidently, not enough. Even to the point where Dawson felt it would be appropriate to dress in drag for his own movie, and in those scenes especially is where I started losing it.

When the screaming, and constant badgering finally suffices, “Not Cool” still left an unwanted ring in my ear. I truly hope next time around, the correct filmmaker gets the award. Even though I have yet to see Anna Martemucci’s “Hollidaysburg”.  ANYTHING is better than this.

F

Directed By: Shane Dawson

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 85 mins

Release Date: September 19th 2014

Studio: Starz Digital Media

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