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Review: Crap Shoot: The Documentary (2008)

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Mark R. Leeper

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Apr 6, 2008, 10:13:24 PM4/6/08
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CRAP SHOOT: THE DOCUMENTARY
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: This is a comic documentary that is
supposedly an inquiry into the reasons for the poor
quality of Hollywood films. In fact, it is a set of
five or six semi-serious interviews about films with
minor functionaries in the film industry or the
occasional college professor. These interviews are
inset in a satire of the documentary filmmaking
process and a parody of other documentaries. The
result is amusing but nowhere near profound. Rating:
+1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

CRAP SHOOT is somewhere in a gray zone between a real documentary
and a send-up of documentaries. The film is done on the cheap in
digital photography. Ken Close is the writer, director, and
producer, worked on the musical score, and did about twenty other
jobs listed in the end credits. The supposed intent of the film
is to discuss American film with well-known Hollywood filmmakers
and with other people close to the film industry. The topic to
be explored is, "Why are the Hollywood films that we see so bad?"
Why, for example, are we seeing so many sequels and remakes that
do not stand up to their originals?

In fact, the intent of the proceedings is a little less serious
than that. There are some interviews with real people connected
to the film industry. The odds are none of these people will the
viewer have ever heard of or remember seeing in a film. However,
they are in the film industry and their opinions are of interest
and have some value. But all of the connective tissue between
these interviews is intended to be comic and it just occasionally
succeeds. The result is a film that is amusing (sort of),
enlightening (more or less), but nothing to stand beside some of
the major documentaries that are being made now. The major
insight is what anybody with an ounce of maturity in the film
business knows. It is that what makes a good film is a good
story and characters the audience becomes involved with
emotionally. These cannot be made by a formula, and what films
really need is good writing. Even so the system is such that the
best scripts are winnowed away with a huge number of very bad
scripts. That is not a lot of profundity or reward for 97
minutes of attention. But there are apparently a lot of people
in the film industry who do not realize even those basics. How
is that possible? The film answers that at the very beginning by
quoting the famous 1926 telegram that Herman J. Mankiewicz in
Hollywood sent to Ben Hecht in New York. The telegram said:
"Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is
idiots. Don't let this get around." (It did get around.)

The supposed story documented is Ken Close's trip to Hollywood to
interview many of the major figures of the film industry. Of
course none of them will talk to him. With him he brings his
long-time friend Jim Horton, a real-life radio personality, who
brings his deep radio voice to the narration of the film. The
two argue over such minor issues at the poor quality food that
Ken is providing. Some of the interviewees are also comic plants
who undermine what credibility the semi-serious interviews have.
Being fair, in the end it is probably clear who was telling the
truth and whose presence was just a joke.

Much more could have been said about the state of the film
industry and the quality of the films made, had that been the
intent. But that was not really the intent. The intent was to
entertain and not to say anything serious or affecting. And that
in and of itself is a good description of the sort of film the
film industry makes. I would rate CRAP SHOOT: THE DOCUMENTARY a
+1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1062901/>


Mark R. Leeper
mle...@optonline.net
Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper

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