A friend of mine once said something that I think is important to mention when bringing up the documentary Heckler produced and featuring as its guide/interviewer Jamie Kennedy, and it's about the whole process of movie-making. There's usually considered to be three steps: the writing, the shooting, and the editing. But there is a fourth part, arguably, and that is the film with an audience, how they react to it. I mention this because this friend of mine is an aspiring filmmaker who once made short films in college and would intentionally sit in with the audience to see how the film was received by his fellow student filmmakers and other people, and then would get reactions from everybody afterwords. As someone else, myself, who has also made short films and aspires to direct on a professional level, it is the most sobering and soul-crushing experience imaginable to be told a) your movie was great, b) your movie was a piece of s***, and c) what *was* that? And, the question comes, what if they were to write either (or all) of these?
So, as someone who has been on both the end of the creative stick and that of being in that leper colony of people who write on this God-forsaken den of vice and misery known as the inter-web, I respect and admire Jamie Kennedy for what he's done here. I'm reminded why I do what I do on here, and why this "comment" on his production of Heckler I've made personal - because, frankly, so does he here. At the same time I also have to realize with this movie, for everything about it that is funny- and at times it's not just funny but f***ing funny (re: Deep Roy's jacuzzi rant, Kennedy's confrontation with his own critics), it goes without saying that the documentary itself is not that great. It's insightful, it's meaningful, and I know that aside from little tid-bits and a few anecdotes, it's not staying in my collection as more than a rental. I would preface this by saying "I'm only being honest", but that would in turn suggest I lie often enough to have to mention it.
But, then again, what the hell am I doing on here than to say what works or doesn't? How can I write or say something constructive about a movie that is about the very subject of a monkey throwing verbal or written feces at a creative traveler? Do I write that it needs more, well, criticism on critics? On the nature of heckling? On maybe relaying the ratio of blood-alcohol content in a comedy club or at a keyboard to how reactions come out? Heckler can't really get much better, or worse, than it is. It's a series of stories and opinions from people talking about people who have an opinion. It is worthwhile to see that. Nobody can say they're not in the audience on some level, even if, as George Lucas says, you're a creator and not a destroyer. If you're at all in any field of entertainment, you create AND you destroy, to one degree or another, sometimes in crude terms like the gossip bloggers, and sometimes, well, you're Roger Ebert.
Whew. Bottom line, 'the fourth stage', as my friend calls it, is never an easy thing. If it weren't, then I and the creators wouldn't be here. Just remember the scene in History of the World Part 1: for every man making a cave painting, there's someone coming around to bring his urine sample to the equation. Perhaps Jamie Kennedy will, or already had by the end of the movie miraculously enough, come to terms with that fact of being in a business of comedy and movie-making: this is what you do, and that is most certainly what "they" do was well. It's a face. Certainly this is a first step into a world where both he and, in fact, Stanley Kubrick are fair game. And yes, I just compared Jamie Kennedy to Stanley Kubrick, so I may have just devolved this entire discourse. Whatever.
So, as someone who has been on both the end of the creative stick and that of being in that leper colony of people who write on this God-forsaken den of vice and misery known as the inter-web, I respect and admire Jamie Kennedy for what he's done here. I'm reminded why I do what I do on here, and why this "comment" on his production of Heckler I've made personal - because, frankly, so does he here. At the same time I also have to realize with this movie, for everything about it that is funny- and at times it's not just funny but f***ing funny (re: Deep Roy's jacuzzi rant, Kennedy's confrontation with his own critics), it goes without saying that the documentary itself is not that great. It's insightful, it's meaningful, and I know that aside from little tid-bits and a few anecdotes, it's not staying in my collection as more than a rental. I would preface this by saying "I'm only being honest", but that would in turn suggest I lie often enough to have to mention it.
But, then again, what the hell am I doing on here than to say what works or doesn't? How can I write or say something constructive about a movie that is about the very subject of a monkey throwing verbal or written feces at a creative traveler? Do I write that it needs more, well, criticism on critics? On the nature of heckling? On maybe relaying the ratio of blood-alcohol content in a comedy club or at a keyboard to how reactions come out? Heckler can't really get much better, or worse, than it is. It's a series of stories and opinions from people talking about people who have an opinion. It is worthwhile to see that. Nobody can say they're not in the audience on some level, even if, as George Lucas says, you're a creator and not a destroyer. If you're at all in any field of entertainment, you create AND you destroy, to one degree or another, sometimes in crude terms like the gossip bloggers, and sometimes, well, you're Roger Ebert.
Whew. Bottom line, 'the fourth stage', as my friend calls it, is never an easy thing. If it weren't, then I and the creators wouldn't be here. Just remember the scene in History of the World Part 1: for every man making a cave painting, there's someone coming around to bring his urine sample to the equation. Perhaps Jamie Kennedy will, or already had by the end of the movie miraculously enough, come to terms with that fact of being in a business of comedy and movie-making: this is what you do, and that is most certainly what "they" do was well. It's a face. Certainly this is a first step into a world where both he and, in fact, Stanley Kubrick are fair game. And yes, I just compared Jamie Kennedy to Stanley Kubrick, so I may have just devolved this entire discourse. Whatever.