The Clapper (film) : Almost a good movie
I don’t know exactly where this movie lost me, I think for the most part it was because it was just so impractical and extremely predictable.
I really like Ed Helms and have enjoyed Amanda Seyfried since this movie where she played a psycho named Chloe.
So the story is that Eddie (Ed Helms) plays the role of a somewhat socially awkward guy who makes a living by being a fake audience member for infomercials. He acts surprised, he sometimes asks questions that he has been told to ask, and of course he applauds or “claps” and this, combined with the famous infomercial from the 80's, is where the movie got its name.
He also has a bit of a relationship with a girl, Judy, who works at a gas station and she, as it turns out, is even more quirky than he is. She is shy and would generally prefer to not be around people so here job where she works in the register box at a gasoline station is a good mix for her.
Anyway, Eddie ends up becoming somewhat of a celebrity when a late night TV show coincidentally does an expose on infomercials and identifies him as “The Clapper” because he is spotted by the show’s producers for being the same guy in multiple shows but wearing varying degrees of disguise.
He doesn’t want the attention and it starts to negatively influence his life. I suppose that the lesson is meant to be that fame has a dark side as well because even though he was poor, he was reasonably happy with his work (which he can no longer get because he has been called out at “The Clapper.” Also, fans of him have started stalking Judy and because of her shyness she shuts out Eddie and everyone else after she loses her job because of paparazzi camping the location.
The story has a predictable storyline, and it isn’t really even that funny so much as it is a "get on with it already" type experience. Therefore, I can’t really rate it very high and agree with the mainstream critics when i join them in panning this pretty terrible movie.
It must have been around 15 years ago...
I was just starting to get into making ( short ) films. I was in my early twenties and my younger brother in his early teens. He acted in all my projects.
I remember coming up with a short that we called 'The Clapper'. It was inspired by a hair clip ( of one of our sister's ) with a powerful spring inside. The idea was to make it an 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes' kind of B movie that involved tomato ketchup. The hair clip killed people ( my brother and me )
My brother improvised a score ( piano tune), I shot some footage and - eventually - the short film died in the editing process. I sucked at finishing things back in those days.
I just wanted to thank you for bringing back these memories :>)
P.S. While writing this, I realized this short film was called 'The Snapper' not The Clapper but I felt like sharing this memory anyway, haha!
that's a great memory and thanks for sharing it. There were several films that myself and friends made back in the days of VHS so it was much more complicated to actually finish it. We did finish a few though. Unfortunately no one involved knows where the tapes are anymore :(
but to be fair even if they found them the chances of the magnetic tape being undamaged is slim to none and who has a functioning VCR anyway?
Ah, you were a filmmaker yourself. Cool! :>)
I never made films before the digital days though, started at a(nd in a ) later age.
Talking about VHS, I recently moved from The Netherlands to Portugal and am about to move some stuff stalled at my parents place. I was seriously considering to bring my VHS film collection ( too ) but was never able to retrieve my VCR-player from the house of an ex-girlfriend and my parents old VCR appeared to be unrepairable so I am about to sell or dump those films.
I might write a nostalgic piece on it one of these days, to store these memories on the blockchain.
My oldes films were shot on Mini DV (tape), some of them were stored online ( but not on YouTube and got lost ), some are on tapes that I can't play anymore.
P.S. It would be awesome to be able to see these lost films you made ( especially for you and your friends ).
yeah buddy, dump the VHS cassettes unless they are personal memories like you filmed them. We don't need storage media anymore. you know this. It is a shame when you consider how much money was spent on that but i think most everyone went through a similar collection, it might have been laser disc for some people... imagine that!
As kids we were no so much film-makers as we were bored teenagers who didn't like drinking or drugs and we had to fill up the time with something. Some of the films were actually pretty good and despite having zero budget were actually pretty well written. I spoke to the "director" and even he doesn't have them anymore. pity. Maybe it is better left in my memories because they likely aren't as good as i remember.
I love Amanda Seyfried and she turned in one of her best performance in the movie IN TIME,2011.Plus,she's so gorgeous :)
I agree with everything you just wrote.
3.5 / 10
I love the 0.5 extra. 😀
Yeah. lol. Not sure why I did that. Probably because I like both the stars.
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