Project Almanac

After an overachieving high school scientist fails to secure an MIT scholarship, he discovers a mysterious box in his dead father's workshop, along with instructions that guide him and his friends toward the construction of a time machine. The easiest and most efficient way to dismiss Dean Israelite's awful Project Almanac would be to chuck it in the found-footage garbage bin. Over the last decade, the trendy gimmick of found-footage films has become synonymous with unimaginative, penny-pinching cynicism, and Project Almanac commits every single sin of the subgenre—inexplicable motives for the characters to continue filming, nonsensical shot-reverse-shots and multi-camera coverage, nauseating mìse-en-scène, people screaming “Are you seeing this?” and “Please tell me you got that!” at the camera. But let's be honest—no gimmick in cinema past, present or future could make this tripe palatable. It exists solely to shill Red Bull and other demographic-appropriate products.