DROPPING OUT

When Emile was born, his mother vowed her perfect little boy would never know a day of unhappiness. Fast-forward 26 years. Emile vegetates at home in front of the television ? his usual position ? surrounded by empty food cartons. When he can't even watch a documentary on the Secret World of Squirrels successfully, only one solution occurs to our lonely protagonist: suicide. A new motel desk job, on the graveyard shift (naturally), revives Emile's spirits, but not for long. Disappointed again, he confides in his workmate Henry that he plans to kill himself and videotape the event as a message to a long-gone girlfriend. Henry (portrait of a serial slacker) thinks it's a brilliant idea and brings on his friend Andrew, nephew of a syndicated-sitcom director, to oversee the project. Gradually a full-scale movie crew coalesces around Emile, interviewing his associates, filming his speeches, all to ensure that “Goodbye, Good Friend” goes down in history as the ultimate expression of cinema-cide. But a funny thing happens on the way to oblivion. Deadpan dark humor seldom gets deader than Mark Osborne's debut feature, a satire on movie fever and TV re-run aesthetics whose finale sure puts “The Blair Witch Project” into perspective.