Review of Heckler (2007) by Jim S — 16 Nov 2008

Watching this movie inspired me. It shows the forefront of the constant battle between entertainers and their harshest critics. I noticed after watching it that another critic happened to think that it could have done more to open the dialogue between the two parties involved, but I think that I have honestly missed this point while watching the film. To me, this movie breaks open the door to dialogue between the two violently.

And if I may be so bold, as a movie/documentary on it's own, it was great. Even if it doesn't inspire you as it did me, Heckler is a great movie to watch. If for no other reason, because you get to see a lot of real life fights break out over words that were said and feelings that were hurt. Some of you can and will see it as just Jamie whining, but to be honest, I doubt that any such individual would feel the same way if they for one night were the one on the stage.

As you watch this film try wondering about the real intent on both sides. On the one side you have a professional who works in an almost unpredictable industry with a personal connection to her or his work. On the other hand, you have someone who's offended in some way about something that they expected to be different than it was, and sometimes they paid good money for it. Of course, for the heckler or critic it might be easy to generalize what encourages them, but I'd suggest that the rationale is a lot more complicated than most people would assume once all of the facts are laid out on the table, much like the truth behind politics.

Self-reflectively and personally I can look at the issue like this. I am a low class member of society who often feels the need to call foul when someone is making millions of dollars off of the peons of society, while I have to deal with being held down by unequal treatment and unequal opportunity that comes with being poor to begin with. And somehow I can look at what the entertainer is doing and say that on some level that I could have done better. That to me, just doesn't sound right. Does that mean I should be rude just because society as a whole doesn't seem to be evolving in my direction as much as I wish it would? No. Why? Because bitching about other people's faults has never been progress. Giving good criticism and encouraging better entertainment however, now that's progress.

My suggestions to the open forum between critics and entertainers:

1. The next step towards progress might require a more dynamic rating system than any that we currently have. Because it's not all about a simple rating of 1-10, it's more than that. It's about the feelings of every peon and visionary of every creed, genre, and obsessive fan base out there. With that said, I think that the American editors and marketing departments out there need to try ignoring their Americans-are-too-stupid policies and really just let something innovative and intelligent like that take place in this country without them putting up a fight over it.

2. The entertainer gets the money in the end, and with that being said, I think it's fair to assume that what the customer wants is what's most important. But still, no expert in their field can possibly know how to fix what they are doing wrong if they don't know what there is that they've ever done right. It's not enough as a critic to just say 'it sucks' or that it's 'not original' anymore. Blogging is a good resource where you can give a review that considers all of the different kinds of views out there, not just the ones who are identical to yours.

3. Entertainers, you're making a lot of money which doesn't really reflect the amount of hard work you've put into it. You work hard sure, and you have skills and talent, that's great. But you're not the only ones with skills and talent that can entertain, and some people who have enough talent don't get to prove it and make a fair amount of money for it because they are too busy trying to thrive on their dead end jobs that make them work just as hard if not harder than you do just to keep proving to the rest of society that they have the right to have food and shelter. When you make the kind of money that you do, you should consider philanthropy to help such people in my opinion, but that aside, I'm wondering when you will ever come up with a great way to let people on the bottom get a chance to compete with you creatively.

I know that if you get mail with a few choice good ideas in it, then there are some moral and copyright based issues to deal with, but how about this; Why doesn't somebody make a tv show that runs like the outer limits and twilight zone, with a completely new world and new idea in each episode, but have the main theme be fan fiction. You collect some writtings of fan fiction about popular and cult interests and then choose the best of them to put on your show. For that show, you should offer the writters who win the complete equal opportunities that professional writters get if their writting is used in a tv episode. It would be an awesome way to be discovered and it would make the system more fair when it comes to the haves and have nots of the entertainment industry.

With all that said, I have a blog or two that I myself will want to change after having seen heckler. And Jamie, if you're reading, Malibu's MW was awesome, fuck what those morons said. My fav punchline in that movie: "Grand theft Auto 3.".