The Beta Test

source: The Beta Test

This film start with a woman calling 911, and she eating with a man scene! As turnout, this film is about the life of a Hollywood agent "Jordan" on the brink, after he receive an invitation letter! Entire film full of boring conversation, and annoying overuse scene! Such as, overuse of the walking scene, overuse of the searching scene, overuse of the arguing scene, overuse of the calling names scene, overuse of the staring scene, overuse of the smoking scene, overuse of the cursing scene, overuse of the drinking scene, overuse of the flashbacks scene, overuse of the talking on the phone scene, overuse of the car driving on the road scene, overuse of the checking social media scene, overuse of the cleaning teeth scene, and overuse of the long angle scenery scene! Make the film unwatchable! At the end, Jordan, and Caroline decide to become predator instead of victim! That's it! Another disappointed film!

An overstressed Hollywood agent, a few weeks before his weeding, gets personal invitation for a no hold barrels sexual encounter. The problem is he is blinded and identify the woman he had sex with. He become obsessed with her and the situation and things get out of control. The movie can be considered as poor people Eyes Wild Shut; but with some comedy moments (and sometimes very annoying). Jim Cummings, the director, loves the be the annoying/disturbed guy (as he did in the funnier The Wolf of Snow Hollow); perhaps too much . He is still funny but he exceeds his welcome in my opinion. There some interesting secondary characters; dialogs filled with one liners that requires a lot of attention, several killings and some kind of thriller that (as in Eyes Wide Shut) is barely resolved. The important theme of the movie is the hypocrisy and desperation that requires to stay afloat in this new ultra technological world. As hard as it seems; Cummings also keep everything on the light smile side instead of the drama. In brief; it is an interesting concept managed in a very interesting way. Worth a try; but requires attention.

Neither story nor characters are interesting enough to actually watch it from start to end. Cinematography is nowhere to be seen to actually save this abomination of a movie. It's not unwatchable, but there is very little sense in doing so: the message behind the story is so trivial that the whole effort to pack it in a movie requires either more depth or less screen time.

Or the friction of a fractious mind, of a grooming groom 6 weeks before his marriage, comes into such stress that all the latent undiscovered mental imbalances and diseases come to the surface in a very sexual potent dramathriller with a hint of comedy, or is it just another one of those senseless labyrinthic writer/producer/director hyperspadic shuffles of a confused humans mind? Dont ask me, cause i cant tell. Jim cummings do have some weird movies in his dossiere, and the beta test is simply said another complex one. But it shows how voulnerable we are in our digitized lives, where you are controlled whatever or whenever, its a nightmare on the doorstep, but it misses the real potent strings in my uvula, and that is due to its complex story where noone can trust anyone, and therefore a bookmark case of every neurotics worst nightmare. It do also have some sex acts, even though its just at a second grade of grey, itll really suck you in... jim cummings is this film, with a little bit of help from the supporting cast, his acts are weird and demeanors shares a coocoo's nest, and with a million facial expressions that can entertain even the most demented silverscreenviewer. I do not love him , i just like him , maybe because he is a spittin image of my son. But the film lacks some debth of reason and is so abrupt and culdesacking in its plotdevelopment that its hard to enjoy for the average viewer, its more a geek kinda freakin show, therefore just a 6 from the grumpy old man.

Maybe it's just me, the average viewer who doesn't have a vision of what the art cinema is and who cannot find enough entartainment, some sort of interesting catch or get any empathetic impression out of this movie, but I really don't get it how this kind of production could find its way into theaters. The script really sucks (pardon my French!) and the characters are not sympathetic, so how could we be interested, as viewers, by something as hollow? Too bad some people invested money into something like this and hoped to make a decent profit: that's a no/no!

Let's just say that Jim Cummings a director AND as an actor doesn't work for me. His act work for 20 minutes, but after that it's just repetitive and annoying even if he has something to say.

"The Beta Test" is an indie film starring Jim Cummings and PJ McCabe who also wrote and directed and let me tell you that this is the FIRST Covid-era indie with writers/actors/directors that has NOT been a waste - this was actually good. There are A, B, and C stories in this film and people are getting confused which is which, even mainstream critics. So without getting too long here, I'll 'splain the A story which is causing the most confusion. The film derives its name from a computer program called the_beta_test.py (written in Python) written by a hacker aliased as Johnny Paypal. He got thousands of names of film industry players via the Sony hack of 2014 and uses them as input to the program which pairs people for "secret admirer" one-time sexual encounters. He makes money, $5000/person, by selling them the name of the other. Sometimes these lead to adulterous encounters which often ends with murder in this film. Johnny's beta test, which is the state of a program before goes into production status, involved about 100 pairings which netted him about $1M but as he was being attacked by Jordan he launched it into "alpha"/production mode which pairs 1000 times more which he expects to net him $1B in the next few days, wow, some business plan. So here's the real spoiler since no one else seems to know or understand. Jordan's fiancee Caroline was the woman he was paired with! That's why she forgave him after his meltdown/implosion in the garage, and she's apparently pregnant (closing scene in the diner) so there's that to keep her with him. And they're on the run since he committed quite a few felonies. All the other story threads are subordinate to this primary one. BTW, some have compared Jim Cummings to Jim Carrey but I think he's more like Ty Burrell playing a psycopathic Phil Dumphy! Also, this has been compared to "Eyes Wide Shut" and there are thematic elements they share including the haunting music, but I'd also point out its similarity to 2008's "Deception" which was really good, too. Now that you know all this, it may warrant a re-watch if you were lost the first time through, enjoy!

Trailer—The Beta Test

source: The Beta Test