Overview: Marnie just graduated from college, drinks likes she's still in school, and is looking for a temp job but a permanent boyfriend. She loves a guy who doesn't love her (?), ping-pongs between awkward romantic alternatives and even less suitable jobs.

DVD Verdict: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Funny Ha Ha is an important film, maybe a pivotal film showing a new direction for filmmakers, maybe not filmmakers, but digital filmmakers. Sure, made with 16 mm, but really, Andrew Bujalski, director and actor, could have filmed for far less money with a digital camera. For those of us writing our own stuff and lining up our amateur actors, 'Funny Ha Ha' is a wild success.

A nerds dream, Kate Dollenmayer, not so pretty that the good lookin' guys whisk her away, but quirky, and cute enough for the nerds to go bananas. As a twenty-three year-old ex-college student, she is bored out of her mind by paper shuffling jobs and a social whirl that is not unlike dorm life, but more urban trendy in a run down apartment way. Ah, how we remember all those crash pads of yore. Nothing has changed since the sixties. Kate drinks too much, wanders around in a daze too much, and is in love with a guy as dazed and unsure as she. She could have sex anytime with anyone to relieve tension, but has sex not at all. A couple of kisses with a boy here and there are as much as our slackers will chance.

I got a kick out of the Russian Scholar Woman's interpretation of Marnie's lifestyle in the commentary feature. She claims that two-hundred years ago falling in love was dangerous. Either you got married, had a family, or you killed yourself. Today, these slackers of the last half century take no risk in love. They merely move in circular social sets defined by their lack of articulation. No one ever says I love you aloud seriously. Every dude and dudette subsists in a soup bowl of ironies.

Again, and in closing, this film is easily as important and interesting as other major indie debuts like 'Stranger than Paradise,' 'Slackers,' 'Clerks,' and 'Sex Lies and Videotape.' Here's hoping that as Andrew Bujalski (and his stellar cast) finds the much-deserved acclaim from this film he doesn't lose the honesty and edge of this simple, low budget masterpiece. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of: