Howard Cantour.com
| Howard Cantour.com | |
|---|---|
Film festival poster
|
|
| Directed by | Shia LaBeouf |
| Starring |
Jim Gaffigan Thomas Lennon Portia Doubleday |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
11 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Howard Cantour.com is a 2012 short film directed by actor Shia LaBeouf. The short was shown at the Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2012, followed by an online premiere on December 17, 2013. The short film follows the eponymous internet film critic Howard Cantour, who was played by Jim Gaffigan.Howard Cantour.com is derived from Justin M. Damiano, a comic by Dan Clowes, although LaBeouf did not seek permission from Clowes, or acknowledge Clowes in the film's credits.
The film opens with Howard Cantour (Jim Gaffigan) reflecting on being a critic and how a review can either promote or devastate a film's chances of survival. The movie then cuts to a scene of Howard sitting in a restaurant with Dakota (Portia Doubleday), a young review critic. Howard is dismissive of her, saying that he wouldn't have bothered talking to her if she wasn't attractive. The two discuss an upcoming film preview and Dakota states that she believes that the two of them should help the movie out as the film's production company is not going to heavily promote it. Howard states that he hopes that the film fails, as he has grown jaded with how directors overall deal with reality in a film. He goes on to argue that he grew disgusted with the film's director, Holly Pondyoke (Dito Montiel), as he had filmed a scene in a previous film where a kid stole his mother's ring, which Howard believes was done only to show how horrible people can be.
Howard attends the film's preview, where he interacts with fellow online film critic Rocco (Thomas Lennon) and is told that only specific film critics (namely newspaper critics) will be allowed into the discussion with the director. Rocco disdainfully says that he thinks that the film's production company believes that the online film critics will treat the film like a newspaper critic would, meaning that they would review the film more positively. Dakota then approaches the two men and asks their opinion about the film, to which Rocco says that he would be posting a mixed review. He's surprised when Dakota says that Howard would be writing a negative review, as at one point Howard had given the director an overwhelmingly positive review. However it is this same review that gains Howard entrance into the discussion. He's nervous, but correctly assumes that the newspaper critics would try to commandeer the entire proceedings. Howard wishes that his younger self that had written the positive review were there and reminisces how he had written the review in order to impress his then-wife Ellen.
...
Wikipedia