filmcritic . com presents a review from staff member robert strohmeyer . you can find the review with full credits at <a href= " http : //filmcritic . com/misc/emporium . nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/a46c7fd38f94c1c0882569660003758e ? opendocument " >http : //filmcritic . com/misc/emporium . nsf/2a460f93626cd4678625624c007f2b46/a46c7fd38f94c1c0882569660003758e ? opendocument</a> the story of two friends drifting apart in a world of increasingly conflicting interests , one is the directorial debut of former fashion photographer's assistant and college ballplayer tony barbieri . meet nick razca ( kane picoy ) , a twenty-something san francisco trash collector who coulda been a contender in major league baseball if he hadn't started his career by socking his coach in the face . now meet charlie o'connell , fresh out of the big house after apparently assisting in his grandfather's suicide . nick and charlie are lifelong friends . now that charlie's out of prison , nick and his family ( he still lives with his parents ) have opened their doors to him indefinitely . soon charlie will be working the trash truck with nick , but first he has some community service to do , under the management of a moderately plausible love interest named sarah ( autumn macintosh ) . meanwhile , some bad guys are out to kill poor charlie because he pissed some people off in prison . due to its horrendously amateurish scripting and direction , it took yours truly about 60 of this film's 88 minutes to learn all the background presented above ; converting what seems at face value like an interesting story into little more than a tangle of bad editing and ambient noise . and let's talk about the noise for a moment . while it's perfectly understandable that filmmakers on a budget might not produce the best possible audio tracks , barbieri's insistence on having his actors talk with their mouths full for two-thirds of the movie is absolutely senseless . coupled with the slow , pathetic dialogue , conversation between the characters serves little purpose beyond breaking up long periods of slurping spaghetti and shuffling feet . so , based on observations from this film's failures , here are a few tips for you budding filmmakers out there : 1 ) when characters are speaking , it's a good idea to show them on camera -- at least some of the time . about a third of macintosh's lines are spoken off-camera , sometimes showing just her hands so we know she's still there . it's a real tension killer . 2 ) lay out your story up front . there's nothing wrong with plot twists and surprises , but it's a good idea to let your audience know right from the beginning that your movie is actually about something . 3 ) keep it moving . long , pointless silences may be common in real-life conversations , but should be kept to a minimum in movie-life , unless they convey some kind of meaning , which wasn't the case in any of one's innumerable long , pointless silences . on the bright side , actors jason cairns and autumn macintosh show a lot of potential , and they might even have saved the film had barbieri's direction not bungled the job so completely . sadly . kane picoy's portrayal of nick is one-dimensional and bland , but the highlight of the cast is paul herman as nick's hot-headed father , ted . in the end , this flick has all the trimmings of a fourth-year film school final project and just isn't ready for the big screen . barbieri's one probably could have pulled a b + at ucla , but at filmcritic . com it gets a d- . 
