Micro Budget (2024)
Micro Budget is a rambunctious comedy with the same absurdist flow as something like “Parks and Rec” or “The Office” or about 90% of what is currently on “Saturday Night Live” if you shave off the persistent political stuff. It’s a very funny movie that feels like a modern TV sitcom, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. The persistence of absurdist humor makes for a very funny movie. The problem is that after an hour and a half, you’re ready to move on. The basic flow of this movie might have made a better mini series of Netflix.
The story is simple: An aspiring filmmaker sinks every dollar that has, and some that he borrowed from his in-laws, to move from Iowa to L.A. to make a low-budget disaster movie about a meteor that threatens the Earth. The problem: he’s an idiot who has no real understanding of people, of filmmaking, of money management or of letters and arts. The cast and crew that he has gathered in an Air B&B to shoot this auteurist disaster-piece understand what he’s doing wrong and what he should do about it (including paying them) but he just doesn’t seem to get it. He has sunk his money into this project and moved halfway across the country in spite of the fact that his wife is nine-months pregnant.
The film has a strange television vibe, and you can tell it comes from television writers including director and writer Morgan Evans, the man responsible for the animated feature Merry Little Batman.
It’s hard to say too much without giving anything away except to say that the film is very funny in that “Parks and Rec” sort of way – it has a sitcomy vibe without sounding weird without a laugh track. The characters are laid out in a manner of being individuals but all are banded together on the insanity of Terry’s vision and lack of common sense. You either go with this movie or you don’t, and I’ll admit, I was. It is very funny, but after 90 minutes you’re kind of worn out. This movie is more or less a joke machine. Some new crisis is popping up every few seconds and you’re 100% positive that this project will crash into the ground.
About the Author: Jerry Roberts
Jerry Roberts is a film critic and operator of two websites, Armchair Cinema and Armchair Oscars. 
