Eye Candy #347 - "Home Movie"

Home Movie:  While inferior to Chris Smith's previous (and utterly brilliant) documentary "American Movie", "Home Movie" has its own charms, is competently done, and does what it sets out to do and does it well. The title says it all - it's a documentary about a handful of "exotic" homes from around the country, from a waterfall-powered treehouse in Hawaii to a converted missile silo in Kansas. It's as much about the owners of the various structures (some of whom redefine the word 'eccentric' and 'kooky') as the structures themselves. Smith never passes judgment on his subjects, and I don't know if it's intentional or not, but several of the subjects are pitiable (to hear the rambling cajun guy talk about how he got third and fourth degree burns because of the stupidity of another watercraft or the old man who describes the dog he had stuffed when it died as his "son", you can't help but feel sorry for these folks; envied for their homes, pitied for their lives). Don't get me wrong - living in an abandoned missile silo would probably rock. Suffice it to say, there is definitely a whole lotta different drumming going on here.