Touch Me in the Morning (2006)

Giuseppe Andrews’ “Touch Me in the Morning” is comprised of mainly a man throwing a lot of camera errors towards the audience presenting it as arthouse chic. It watches like a pointless exercise towards the audiences’ attention span. The dialogue rambles endlessly (most times I had to turn up my volume to hear any dialogue), the narrative is almost non-existent, and there are a myriad odd and incredibly mind-numbing musical numbers that aren’t catchy or fun.

The “film” stars Giuseppe Andrews as Coney Island, a man with seventies glasses who hangs around the elderly singing songs, and embarks on a journey of self-discovery, while bringing the audience on a grueling journey of nails on a chalkboard. Andrews’ films is structured like pseudo-Hunter S. Thompson with a main character on the journey for self-discovery, an odd array of people around him, really drab narration that drones throughout most of the film.

Most dialogue is repeated, and our “actors” deliver their lines in almost three different takes on film (The editing is choppy with quick cuts, and long drawn out close-ups), almost as if we’re supposed to think of this as a masterful presentation in acting. Really it’s just sloppy, and far from amusing. I think even the most forgiving arthouse goon will have trouble enduring the little ticks that director Andrews employs here. The characters that are never as compelling as Andrews thinks, and we have to also sit through really cold scenes between them.

This includes one where Island asks his mom, why she and his father broke up. Every cast member appears as if they’re improvising their lines, and quite poorly; Andrews, meanwhile doesn’t muster up any sense of charisma or personality to make him a watchable main character. That’s a damn shame because even in piss poor projects, Andrews is a unique character actor, and one I’m often entertained by. Even in “Detroit Rock City” he thrives over everyone else. “Touch Me in the Morning” is just too poorly made to considered solid schlock or even experimental. It just feels more like lazy film student fodder when all is said and done.