Dan Mirvish Movies

All those movies the snotty clerk at the video store keeps telling you to rent get raked over the coals in this over-the-top satiric comedy. Harvey (Eric Hoffman) and Sam (Neil Barton) are a pair of identically black-suited hitmen who have been assigned to take part in a conceptually disastrous robbery in Las Vegas. Harvey and Sam are supposed to pick the other members of their crew en route; however, by accident they end up with Johnny Vince (Darren Keefe), a would-be jazz musician with chronic woman problems, and try to compensate by taking a hostage, Julianne (Paget Brewster), a discount store drone who tells all within earshot about her a lousy marriage and dreams of a better life. As Harvey, Sam, and their unwilling companions hit the road to Sin City, they cross paths with an aggressively cheerful French girl named Anomalie (Ashley Head), a possible murderer with a really bad memory (Brian Krow), a German redhead who's always running somewhere (Regina Berger), a Mexican gunman with a guitar case and a poor command of English (Manolo Travieso), and an awful lot of sensitive and articulate lesbians. My Big Fat Independent Movie was scripted by Chris Gore, who helped document the rise of the independent movement in the 1980s and '90s as founder of the magazine Film Threat (feel free to read as much irony into that as you wish). ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

This sophomoric comedy, shot on a $40,000 budget, was the USC thesis project for writer/director Dan Mirvish. Simon has just returned to his Nebraska family after spending a year seeking spiritual enlightenment in Nepal and other exotic countries. He left to escape his weird family, but now he finds himself back where he began; he is having some trouble adjusting. But for a handful of Buddhist prayer stones given to him by monks, Simon is flat broke. It is his former girlfriend Gina who tells him that the stones are emeralds. Simon's readjustment is hindered by a gang of Colombian crooks, a gang of kickboxers, and a TV news team who are all looking for those stones. The film's climax takes place at "Carhenge," an imitation of Stonehenge made out of cars. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide