One of the great films of the 1990s was American Movie, Chris Smith’s documentary about working class Wisconsin filmmaker Mark Borchardt and his efforts to complete Coven, a short horror movie about an alcoholic writer. Smith’s film was both a hilarious look at the pitfalls of no-budget filmmaking (as in the signature scene of Borchardt shoving an actor’s head through a non-breakaway cabinet door) and a poignant depiction of economically deprived Middle America. A star was born in the person of Borchardt’s gentle burnout sidekick Mike Schank, who stole every scene in which he appeared.
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