Dumbest Documentary of the Year: Another three way tie? What are the chances?!
This one is tricky to choose. I wrote about Morgan Spurlock's horrid 'Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden' over the summer, so refer back to that one.
More recently, I caught 'Heckler', a documentary by Jamie Kennedy with as redundant a thesis as Spurlock's film. People that heckle at stand up comedy shows are annoying? No shit! It's nice to see some comedians I like (Mirman, Oswalt, Cross, Tompkins) offering their experiences, and some of the stories are pretty funny, but really, who cares? Just as nobody (nobody rational) really believes that ALL Muslims are terrorists - you don't need to see '...Bin Laden' to know that, nobody is standing up for the rights of hecklers, claiming that it's a valid art. So that whole thing was a little redundant. But after about half an hour, it takes a sudden turn, and becomes a film that ought to be subtitled: "Jamie Kennedy: Why didn't people like Son of the Mask?", a rant about movie critics, online and in print. Now, I'm aware of the irony inherent in me writing about this movie, but come on. Everyone gets bad reviews, not everyone goes crying to the reviewers about it. He talks to some internet guys and Richard Roeper and ends up looking kind of silly and thin-skinned. I felt bad for the critics having to explain their reasons to the man face-to-face. Only one of them was ballsy/confident enough to say "Your movies all fucking suck" directly to Kennedy. Even though I found the documentary almost entirely unnecessary, I agree that one particular critic should be stopped.
Finally, a few nights ago (not on Xmas Day) my parents and I watched Bill Maher's 'Religulous', an extended stand up routine interspersed with Maher yelling at people, many of whom didn't really deserve it. Sure, he interviewed plenty of kooks, but you can't only talk to people on the fringes and then say that they're representative of religion as a whole. One guy has his own business, where he makes devices to help orthodox Jews to use certain appliances, while still observing the Sabbath. Fair observation: "What, are they trying to cheat God?". Too often though, it's smug (imagine that), uses silly sound effects, and overbroad. No doubt, religion is at the root of a lot of problems, and there are plenty of people out there who use religion to line their own pockets, but Maher's approach is just to say "If you believe in any religion, you're a moron" and that's pretty hard to take.
They can't all be 'Man on Wire'
Why so (not at all) serious?
Like his previous film 'Super Size Me', Morgan Spurlock's latest joint 'Where In the World is Osama Bin Laden?' begins with a little preamble, before Morgan walks down the street, shouts the title of the film, and then the opening credits roll.
Like 'Super Size Me', this film is carried by Spurlock's amiable personality.
Like 'Super Size Me', this film has a pretty obvious message that you don't need to sit through an hour and a half of film to figure out.
Unlike 'Super Size Me', this film is a load of balls.
Look, Morgan. You're a nice guy. One time we shared a cab at SXSW, after that Craigslist documentary. The sociological experiment stuff worked well before, and it's pretty good on your TV show. But this is a issue that's really serious. You can't say "maybe [Osama]'s a 9ft tall bionic ninja with x-ray eyes and the power of flight" immediately after showing him dancing to MC Hammer. You can't talk about how the U.S. has historically supported dictatorships and illustrate it with gaudy cartoons, over a rap music background. You can't use videogame graphics, or an animation of Bin Laden as a fast food worker. You sure can't keep referring to him as "OBL".
You can't tackle an issue as important as this and not tell me anything new.
There is some good here, though, guys: there's a training sequence at the start that's equal parts intense and paranoid. I thought it was kind of cool that the Doctor from 'Super Size Me' is still his doctor, and after freaking out in the last film, he doesn't bat an eyelid when Spurlock says "I'm going to look for Osama Bin Laden" as if it's nothing. That's about it.
Framing the film around the imminent birth of his first child is clumsy, and the shots of his wife, back home in New York don't sit well with all the (sort of) politicking. The tone was all wrong. This film was all wrong.
