Nathan Rabin's Happy Place's Definitive Guide to American Movies about the Film Industry
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Poultry in Motion: Truth is Stranger Than Chicken (2008)(FM)
Troma kingpin Lloyd Kaufman is an inveterate self-promoter. He’s a big believer in the aphorism that all press is good press. That helps explain why he opened his set to a documentary crew while filming the 2006 satirical gross-out comedy Poultrygeist despite the result reflecting terribly on Kaufman and Troma.
The democratic dream of Poultrygeist was to empower Troma’s hardcore fans to make the big leap to filmmaking by allowing them to work on a bona fide Lloyd Kaufman production in exchange for no money and sub-sweatshop working conditions.
Unfortunately, when Troma pressed its fanbase to work for free, they got what they paid for, even if the amateurs were more professional than Kaufman. Kaufman has cultivated a persona as the vulgar, shameless spirit of independent film at its most vulgar and unashamed. A very different Kaufman emerges in Poultry in Motion. He’s less a champion of the underdog than a shameless exploiter of the desperate and vulnerable.
Poultry in Motion is a dark comedy of errors about a waking nightmare of a film shoot. It’s a warts-and-all look at a production that was pretty much all warts. Poultry in Motion is subversively a Troma production that exposes its shtick as a poisonous lie designed to trick rubes into working without payment. Poultry in Motion occupies a place of pride in the irresistible subgenre of morbidly fascinating documentaries about embarrassingly unprofessional productions.
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Comic Book: The Movie (2004) FM
Mark Hamill made his directorial debut with the 2004 mockumentary Comic Book: The Movie. The low-budget independent film is about subject matter near its director/star’s heart: comic book geeks, pop culture buffs, and low-culture mavens. Hamill understands the world of geekdom from inside and out as an icon revered for his portrayals of Luke Skywalker and Joker and a bona fide geek.
Hamill, who also co-wrote the screenplay and produced, stars as Donald Swan. He’s a schoolteacher and hardcore comic book geek famous for his obsessive exploration of superhero Commander Courage in a zine and website.
When Hollywood decides to make a dark and gritty blockbuster movie about the geek’s favorite superhero, Donald is hired as a consultant in a cynical attempt to appease old-school fans.
Comic Book: The Movie takes place mainly at the 35th annual San Diego Comic-Con and features all of the usual suspects: Stan Lee, of course, as well as Kevin Smith (who gets even more mileage out of his famous giant spider story), Bruce Campbell and Hugh Hefner.
Comic Book: The Movie benefits from specificity. It affectionally chronicles a world that Hamill knows intimately and adores.
Hamill is almost as well known for his voice work as for playing the hero in the biggest science fiction saga ever. The Star Wars star gives fellow voiceover superstars Tom Kenney, Billy West, and Roger Rose juicy supporting roles.
Hamill sticks the landing with a climactic monologue about the wonders of comic books, superheroes, and imagination that is passionate and idealistic without being sentimental. Comic Book: The Movie is modest in scope and ambition but a treat for comic book and movie geeks.