Movie Reviews: Straight to VHS and Extraneous Matter – Complete Edition (SLASH Film Festival)
Straight to VHS In the Uruguayan documentary Straight to VHS (Directamente para video; 2021), director Emilio Silva Torres chronicles his efforts to locate fellow countryman Manuel Lamas, the filmmaker behind the 1989 direct-to-video obscurity Act of Violence in a Young Journalist that became an obsession with some of those who have seen it. Clips of the movie shown in the documentary make apparent Act of Violence . . .’s non-existent budget — as do Lamas acquaintances who remember him borrowing equipment and not returning it — and its sometimes laughable content. Yet still, some Uruguayan cinephiles are engrossed with locating the creator of the film. Lamas is a difficult person to track down, and Torres finds that almost everyone involved with the making of the film wants nothing to do with being interviewed about it. Torres does not give up easily, though, which makes for an engaging quest. One frustrating element about Straight to VHS is that almost none of
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