Synopsis
The film opens with Howard Cantour ( Jim Gaffigan) reflecting on being a critic and how a review can either promote or devastate a film's chances of survival. The movie then cuts to a scene of Howard sitting in a restaurant with Dakota ( Portia Doubleday), a young review critic. Howard is dismissive of her, saying that he wouldn't have bothered talking to her if she wasn't attractive. The two discuss an upcoming film preview and Dakota states that she believes that the two of them should help the movie out as the film's production company is not going to heavily promote it. Howard states that he hopes that the film fails, as he has grown jaded with how directors overall deal with reality in a film. He goes on to argue that he grew disgusted with the film's director, Holly Pondyoke ( Dito Montiel), as he had filmed a scene in a previous film where a kid stole his mother's ring, which Howard believes was done only to show how horrible people can be. Howard attends the film's preview, where he interacts with fellow online film critic Rocco ( Thomas Lennon) and is told that only specific film critics (namely newspaper critics) will be allowed into the discussion with the director. Rocco disdainfully says that he thinks that the film's production company believes that the online film critics will treat the film like a newspaper critic would, meaning that they would review the film more positively. Dakota then approaches the two men and asks their opinion about the film, to which Rocco says that he would be posting a mixed review. He's surprised when Dakota says that Howard would be writing a negative review, as at one point Howard had given the director an overwhelmingly positive review. However it is this same review that gains Howard entrance into the discussion. He's nervous, but correctly assumes that the newspaper critics would try to commandeer the entire proceedings. Howard wishes that his younger self that had written the positive review were there and reminisces how he had written the review in order to impress his then-wife Ellen. He leaves without talking to the director, only for Dakota to ask if he had asked the director about the shot that they had discussed earlier about the stolen ring. Dismayed that he did not talk to the director, Dakota brings him over. The director then explains that the film in question had a deleted scene that explained the reasons behind the scene, but Howard doubts the truthfulness of this claim. Howard debates over whether or not to post his scathing review and briefly thinks about how his wife Ellen left him before ultimately choosing to upload his review.Cast
* Jim Gaffigan as Howard Cantour * Thomas Lennon as Rocco Eppley * Portia Doubleday as Dakota * Dito Montiel as Holly Pondyoke *Plagiarism
Shortly after the film's online release, bloggers and newspapers familiar with indie comics noticed its resemblance to ''Justin M. Damiano'', a 2007 comic by '' Ghost World'' author Daniel Clowes from the anthology ''Reception
Upon its initial premiere at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival ''Howard Cantour.com'' received a large amount of critical acclaim. '' IndieWire'' posted a review that stated that the film was "ultimately a surprisingly successful movie on the experience of watching a movie that should only serve to encourage LaBeouf to further test the directorial waters". ''Howard Cantour.com'' also received some praise when it was released to the Internet, but has since experienced a backlash due to LaBeouf's plagiarism of Clowes' comic.References
External links
* {{Shia LaBeouf 2012 films 2012 short films American short films Films about films Films about the Internet Films about writers Films based on American comics Films involved in plagiarism controversies 2010s English-language films