I had no intentions of seeing Wish I Was Here but I did because my bae was begging me. So I caved in and saw it. Now, before I go on I must mention, I haven't seen Veronica Mars, the other major crowdsourced feature. But Wish I Was Here sets a terrible precedent for what is to be expected from future Kickstarter films.
The first half of the movie is seems pretty standard. Zach Braff is focused on himself and doesn't understand why the entire world isn't focused on himself as well. I know people are going to think its impressive, but I wasn't wowed at all by the one-shot-scene of him crying in bed repeating the line, "I am special, I am special, I am special," for ten minutes. 80% of the scene is his face in a pillow. Why is that "impressive"? Then it cuts to him wiping his eyes and leaving his house. He hands a homeless man a thousand dollars and winks to the camera. This meta kind of behavior is only the beginning.
At around the sixty minute mark of the movie, Zach Braff turns to the camera and says, "Sorry to interrupt Wish I Was Here, but as promised, here's a list of all the people that donated $20 or more to this movie. He puts on his reading glasses and proceeds to read a list of names for twenty five minutes! After a while he starts reading it in funny voices, some of which were VERY racially insensitive. Also, it was really gross how Zach Braff would sometimes read a female sounding name and proceed to lick his lips and say, "Cough, that's a woman, cough." I'm not sure what he was hinting at?
Okay, so as if the movie couldn't get any worse we find out a man donated $20,000,000 to the kickstarter and thusly was able to act in 1,000 frames of the movie as Zach Braff's character. This translates to roughly 44 seconds. So we see Zach Braff, then we see Kate Hudson, and when it cuts back we see a new man dressed up as Zach Braff. This was VERY distracting. He mumbled all of his lines and kept blotting his sweaty head. Kate Hudson acted circles around him and should get an Oscar nod for how well she kept the scene moving. At one point the guy looks at his phone and says, "Gotta get back to Wall Street." This was said as the ACTOR not the CHARACTER! The movie continued and it took me a while to realize Zach Braff was back (his acting wasn't much better than the banker's.)
So finally the movie is over and I turn to my bae like, "Let's get out of here, please?" Then she turns to me like, "Wait, the movie isn't over." And I'm all, "Ugh, what else could possibly happen?" Then the inconceivable happens. The entire cast of Scrubs comes out and gets on their knees and starts begging. "Please, please, please donate money to our Kickstarter? We want to make another season of Scrubs." I eyed the room and everybody looked skeptical. Then Zach Braff takes out a script and hands it to the camera man and said, without any hint of irony, "This script of the new season will change your life." That Shins song plays and the screen turns black. Lights up, and the entire room is on their phones donating money to the Kickstarter!
When we left the theater a homeless man was asking everybody for money. People looked puzzled, like they were having a social conundrum. Then the homeless guy pulled off his wig and revealed: it's Zach Braff. Everybody took photos with him and kept handing him money for lunch. I had bae pinch me because it all felt so dream-like. But it was real. Please, please, please do not see Wish I Was Here!
-Z
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