**½/****
starring Stephen Hale, Anthony Deptula, Tina Kapousis, Jonathan Shockley
screenplay by Anthony Deptula, Michael Mohan, Stephen Hale
directed by Michael Mohan
by Alex Jackson One Too Many Mornings is yet another semi-autobiographical romantic dramedy about two twentysomething males refusing to enter the adult world. It sounds a lot like the below-reviewed Bass Ackwards and Obselidia, but this one was made completely out-of-pocket and shot on the weekends over the course of two years. Considering the ultra-low budget, I'll admit there's a temptation to lower my standards. The filmmaking itself is stylish and inventive while essentially staying organic to the material–there's a fine action sequence involving an angry drunk, while the use of canted angles to convey a character's hangover works nicely, however elementary. I also liked a montage of light switches being turned off that's repeated a few times throughout the film and becomes something of a motif. (It's a successfully cinematic expression of tedium.) Director Michael Mohan is not content to just point-and-shoot, and on the other end of the spectrum, he's not going to play around with the medium unless it serves the characters or the story. One Too Many Mornings is not as bad as the Butler Brothers' 2000 atrocity Alive and Lubricated. It's not even in the same ballpark. Alive and Lubricated was made by amateurs; One Too Many Mornings was made by actual filmmakers. I guess it's pretty good for what it is, though it's still not good enough. Like a lot of these movies, the acting is broad and exaggerated in a way that keeps the performers from exposing too much of themselves. Similarly, the comic elements aren't sourced to a singular, overarching worldview, but are there so the proceedings don't get too serious and brooding. The saving grace of Clerks is that it has an authentic New Jersey flavour; I don't know or remember where One Too Many Mornings takes place–it seems that it could be anywhere. Similarly, the saving grace of Quentin Tarantino's unfinished My Best Friend's Birthday is that it's infused with Tarantino's voice and personality. There's nothing terribly unique or distinctive about One Too Many Mornings.
