What I Think About Movies I've Seen

Rudolph (played by Byron Lane, who was also the writer) is an awkward, introverted teenager with a purplish birthmark on his lip. He hates people in real life, but keeps a video diary that he posts online and carries out conversations with a small group of people through video replies to each other. When his father died unexpectedly, he is reunited with his cousin Christeee (yes, that's three "e"s), played by Ahna O'Reilly. Rudolph has hated her ever since she inflicted a childhood injury, and it doesn't help much now that she wants to become famous and starts to take over his videos. She does draw more viewers, but she humiliates Rudolph by labelling him "Herpes Boy" and causing his reply stream to become flooded by people who want more of her and less of him.

This movie played at the Austin Film Festival last year, although I didn't get a chance to see it then. They gave an encore screening tonight, and I'm glad that I got to see it. It's a genuinely funny movie with a very relatable and sincere main character. It had a pretty noteworthy cast of people you'll recognize even if you don't know them by name, including Beth Grant, Octavia Spencer, and Michael Chieffo, and even the relatively unknown people playing his online friends turned in solid performances. This is probably not going to be in theaters or on DVD any time soon, but if you get a chance to see it then I'd recommend giving it a shot.