"My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes" is a Canadian English-language documentary from 2018, so a very recent release, that is narrated by Emmy winner David Wain and was directed and co-written by Charlie Tyrell who gives us an insight into the world of his late father. The porno tapes reference feels really random I must say after watching this one. There is talk about it and it is referenced early on, but the longer the film goes the less relevant it becomes as we dig deep down into Charlie's father's life back into his own childhood with some serious subjects like cancer and abuse. It gets darker than I expected. The narration is fine, one of the better components of the film, maybe the best. The video site left me unimpressed. It is basically old video recordings, photos and words put on the screen, but I felt something was missing to make this an interesting and insightful watch for the public. I think it is a marvellous work for somebody trying to deal with and find out about his family background and also maybe coming to terms and finding peace with what happened in the past and why his father was the way he was, but I cannot really see why anybody outside the family would really want to watch it to be honest. It is somewhat creative at times, but also not above the level of a relatively new filmmaker that took the easy way out visually most of the time. So I am a bit surprised this got in at the Oscars, or atg least made the short list. i have seen predictions for Documentary Short this year and nobody really includes it in the top5. We will see if it happens. In my opinion the baity title helped the film get some attention, but it's not helping in terms of the quality, on the contrary really. It feels pretty cheap-skate. I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
