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Wish I was here

If you didn’t completely dig Zach Braff’s directorial debut “Garden State,” you are one of two kinds of people:

1.  The kind of person who is wrong frequently.
2. The kind of person who missed out on an opportunity to see it.
Well, make no mistake now, because Zach Braff is back, and he used your money to get there.
OK, maybe not your money specifically, but he did get funding from fans across the country after turning to Kickstarter last year for financial aid of his newest film “Wish I Was Here”.
Kickstarter is a startup website that allows people to donate money to ground-up projects.
Braff raised more than $3 million from the website, which gave him enough funding to have complete control over the production, rather than allowing editors to come in and pick apart his latest brainchild.
Braff showcased the film alongside co-actress Kate Hudson at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
Some financial supporters were angry that they weren’t there to see the film that they helped fund. Others were just pleased to be a part of the production in any way they could be.
Nevertheless, Braff’s film was a hit with critics. Focus Features picked up the film for $2.75 million and will be rolling out a theatrical release this July. Braff promises a few advanced screenings for contributors that donated more than $100.
From the trailer released earlier this month, it looks like Braff has produced yet another “coming of age” story that will surely tug at the heart strings of viewers everywhere.
The premise is about Aidan Bloom (Zach Braff), a 35-year-old father who seems to be just as confused and lost in life as Andrew Largeman (Garden State) was in his twenties.  Bloom has recently home-schooled his two children, which forces the character to open a door of self-reflection on his current position in life.
If “Wish I Was Here” is anything like what groundbreaking work “Garden State” was, I’m sure it’ll be worth a movie ticket. Braff even brought back The Shins to his soundtrack. This alone creates a nostalgic tone that fans simply cannot ignore.
In an interview with Empire Magazine during production, Braff said he was excited to continue his career in directing.
“[‘Garden State’] was my first movie! I really didn’t think it was going to have the reaction it got,” Braff said. “My first time out at bat. Now I get ‘Sidecars are for bitches!’ shouted at me in the street, and I love that. I’m really dying to give people more – if that was my first movie, I can do much better.”

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