Such a frustrating disappointment

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A yuppie couple want to give something back to the community. They have a scheme which involves giving out special lollipops to the homeless. They believe that the homeless could learn self-worth via lollies wrapped in special wrappers covered in inspirational slogans and drawings.This low budget mockumentary is quite surprisingly a product of the Troma studio. I say unexpected as their brand of comedy could best be described as 'wilfully stupid', whereas this film contains a comedy of a far subtler variety. The two stars are Jenna Fischer and James Gunn, who also wrote the thing. It's a very good bit of work from them as they both put it great comic performances as the narcissistic couple who are so self-obsessed they never realise just how ridiculous their foolish scheme is. The writing too is pretty good with a lot of black comedy and satire. But the most impressive thing for me was that I found myself actually laughing aloud a few times which is more than happens with most comedies. Not a bad effort at all.

Watching this movie, I felt like I was looking over Jenna Fischer's resume. Like Owen Wilson in Bottle Rocket, this was a comedic performance that makes the case for why Jenna should be a star. Considering where her career has gone, I guess it worked. Some sitcom stars get their start by doing stand-up. Then, someone from a network or studio likes them enough to develop a series around them. I can imagine Jenna wrote and directed this to get her name out there.It is done in the mockumentary style, so popular now in the age of irony. Yes, as another poster commented, Christopher Guest does do it better. But Lollilove was good enough most of the way that this didn't distract me. I even started to enjoy James Gunn, whose character seemed to obvious to bring any genuine laughs. Bottom line: a fun hour with a very likable cast.

Directed by and starring Jenna Fischer who most people will know from her role in the American version of The Office TV series. Her very natural acting abilities make it very easy to forget that the documentary LolliLove you are watching, is actually a skillfully scripted and directed film. Fischer wrote her directorial debut with Peter Alton and (uncredited) her real-life husband James Gunn (writer of the Scooby Doo films, Dawn of the Dead remake and Tromeo and Juliet and writer/director of Slither) . Gunn also plays her husband in the film as well, and as he has shown briefly in Tromeo & Juliet, his acting is of the same lifelike quality as Jenna's. Lollilove is about those people who try to do the right thing by devoting themselves to a charity project for all the wrong reasons and without any genuine knowledge or understanding of the badly treated individuals in our society they try to help, and even worse so: without any interest in them apart from the opportunity to show off as a better person themselves. And the saddest thing is that they don't even know or realize this themselves. A very dark comedy that is never too funny and sometimes gut-wrenchingly showing the mental poverty of those who are looked upon as being well off. With this film as her debut as a film director, it should only be common sense to be confident that Jenna Fischer has a rich career ahead of her. The feature film is done justice with a rich collection of extra's on Troma's DVD presentation that would make Criterion proud. A very informative and entertaining audio-commentary by Fisher and Gunn with Peter Alton and producer Stephen Blackeheart (100 million BCfriends, a very detailed behind the scenes documentary and a rich collection of deleted scenes and interviews with the Gunns, but also historic film introductions with James Gunn and Stephen Blackeheart from various Troma films, exclusive footage from the set of James Gunn's Slither and much more. Also starring Linda Cardellini (E.R., Broke Back Mountain), Jason Segel (CSI), Joan M. Blair (Donnie Darko, E.R.), Lloyd Kaufman (Terror Firmer) and many more, this is a star studded film that would have been a huge hit if it wasn't released by a blacklisted small independent film studio. Do yourself a favor and see this film. Buy it. Enjoy it. Highly recommended!

Knowing that this movie was made with such a tiny budget really is amazing. The idea is just genius: a yuppie couple decide to give out lollipops covered in "designer wrappers" hoping to inspire the homeless to get jobs, stop doing drugs, or even stop blowing up planes (with James' characters Mustafa and Osama bin Awesome). Of course, their idea is met with a lot of skepticism as well as downright anger, but Jenna and James fight through this negativity and get to live out their "dream." And fail. It's not politically correct, and it's not glossy or perfect, but goddamnit, that's the way movies should be! See this movie!