RECOMMENDED There’s a lot to like about “Four-Eyed Monsters,” a prodigious eyeful of deadpan visual and comic flair by the young writing-directing-acting couple of Arin Crumley and Susan Buice. Artistic compulsiveness demands to be noted, envied and sometimes admired, and in the case of their charming, intimate movie, essentially about the making of “Four-Eyed Monsters” and the occasional fraying of their relationship, playing a September stand at Siskel on Thursday nights, duly noted. As an indelibly likeable micro-budgeted twentysomethings-with-too-much-mind-on-their-time movie, it’s as diverting (and idiosyncratic) as the work of other emerging directors like Joe Swanberg (“Kissing on the Mouth,” “Young American Bodies”) and Andrew Bujalski (“Mutual Appreciation,” “Funny Ha Ha”). They’ve also unraveled their attempts at distribution since Slamdance 2005 (and CUFF 2005, too) with a series of equally clever, brash, charming, lovingly pop-scored shorts at their site (foureyedmonsters.com) and on MySpace. (It’s worth visiting their site for a glimpse at the myriad inventive viral and multimedia strategies being employed to put this movie across.) The material ought to be gorge-worthy, considering the things these mid-twentysomethings are saying about art and their lives, and their ample charm is almost enough along to make you dislike them. Its portmanteau construction and romantic yearning may even suggest a twenty-first-century descendant of “Annie Hall” to some. (Count me in.) Yet you also have to admire Crumley and Buice’s eagerness to find new channels for their output, demonstrating the first baby steps of what filmmakers will be doing in the months and years to come. And their taste in music, in both the shorts and the feature, is impeccable. 71m. DigiBeta. (Ray Pride)
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