User Reviews

This is more like a must avoid than a must see and the great reviews are clearly phony.

It's clearly a vanity project by a guy frustrated that he can't sell a script from Ohio.

It's dismal and if this is an example of his work, no wonder he can't sell diddle.

Okay, so a guy from Ohio can't get his scripts made into movies but he sees all kinds of crappy scripts get made into movies. So he and his buddy go to LA to figure out how the movie business works. But as he is interviewing movie people the strangeness of LA turns his documentary into a movie, about documentaries.

I would love to get the script I wrote made into a movie because I know it will be a great one. And I was hoping this documentary would tell us the secret of writing great scripts. At first I was disappointed that it didn't but then I watched it again and saw that it did. The movie people he interviewed all say you have to have a story that makes the audience react emotionally. And then the documentary shows what the movie people are talking about with funny scenes that make you laugh.

I think this is the only satire ever made about documentaries. The guy even acts like Michael Moore. I recommend this DVD to anybody who loves movies or wants to work in the movie business.

The bottom line is that this documentary ironically leaves me feeling inspired to keep trying! As an aspiring screenwriter, I'm encouraged to hear everyone interviewed talk about how important STORY is. This agrees with what I've learned from my mentor, Richard Walter, UCLA.

Story is the main thing. Without a good story, there is no possibility of a good movie.

I enjoyed the campy moments and the unexpected funny moments in this documentary.

There are some terrific interviews! I love that the more the documentary explored the possibility that there could be a scientific approach to making a hit movie, it always uncovered the hard fact: it is a crap shoot. Predicting what people will relate to is not a science. It's a moving target.

This documentary is a good reminder to filmmakers that there is no formula. Stay open to the possibility of a fresh idea.

As advertised, this is undoubtedly the most entertaining documentary ever made. Its premise is that a genius research scientist from the Midwest travels to Hollywood to discover why so many bad movies are produced each year. I did some checking and determined that the documentary's protagonist, Ken Close, is indeed a member of Mensa (Region 03, Group 434, whatever that means), the high IQ society. This sets up the ultimate "fish-out-of-water" scenario. . .a highly intelligent, logical scientist trying to make some sense of the movie business.

It was interesting to see Hollywood from that perspective and learn his observations along the way. Why, for example, do studios pay top movie stars tens of millions of dollars per project when a star's name typically adds less than five million at the box office? The documentary suggests that since studios don't know what audiences want to see, they'll at least try to give them who they want to see.

The documentary implies that the "science" of making great movies is telling stories designed to get audiences' hormones flowing. Given that, the true science must lie in testing scripts rather than creating them. But I suppose a script could be tested by act or crisis point throughout development, which would connect its writing to a scientific methodology.

I enjoyed the documentary's idiosyncratic, linear approach to interviews, which afforded natural breaks for comic relief and running gags. Initially, these harlequinade twists confused me. Why inject so much comedy into a documentary about the science of great film-making? Then it occurred to me that the documentary was about making an audience's hormones flow. How better to do that than through laughter, which increases your levels of beta-endorphin and HGH? At least I think that's what they were doing. Anyway, it was an excellent comedy. . .very dry and Monty Pythonish.

The abundance of satire, most of it justifiably aimed at Michael Moore, was also first rate. The "Economics 101" scene should be mandatory viewing for all politicians, and the "Hollywood Opera" musical number was witty. Overall, the documentary's production quality was topnotch, especially when you view the credits and see how few people worked on it.

As a student and lover of film I wish every producer, director and writer in Hollywood would watch this documentary and learn from it. There really is no reason to have so many bad films, and so few good ones, produced each year.

I enjoyed watching this very much. I normally don't watch documentaries, but this one was very interesting. I wonder what other ideas this guy has, because I've not been more informed about Hollywood or entertained by a movie, let alone a documentary in a long while. There seems to be a lot of drama between all the different crew members that I didn't know go on behind the scenes. I would like to see this guy get hired going behind the scenes of movies and documenting all the drama behind the scenes. I never knew how hard it was for actors, writers, and producers to get a shot at stardom. With this documentary, I understood all of this and then some.

In a nutshell - this is the most entertaining documentary I've ever seen. It is more informative than anything Michael Moore has produced, and funnier than most studio comedies. I love the way these guys make their points about movies while their trip to Hollywood spoofs the movies they're commenting about.

The documentary examines the science of movie-making, a science that Hollywood apparently does not recognize. But it makes perfect sense, the movies that make the most money are the ones that make our hormones flow. So why don't studios just make movies that do that? Because they don't test audiences to select the right scripts. The story a movie tells is critical, yet the writer seems to be the lowest paid person on the crew.

Great job Ken Close and Jim Horton. I look forward to seeing the next topic you guys tackle.

Am I the only British person to write a review of this film, and perhaps the only one who has seen it? I know nothing about the film industry, but I found this 'mockumentary' most entertaining. The serious research and facts revealed are interspersed with comic lines and situations, and the 'boss/sidekick' relationship of Ken Close and the narrator Jim Horton brought in much humour. ( Jim has the perfect voice for his role as narrator by the way.) I knew this film would be fun and a little 'tongue-in-cheek' when Ken Close is packing for his research trip and packs a light-sabre...

From reading the credits and Ken's responses to other reviewers I see that the interviewees were real people except the reader who for some obscure reason was afraid to appear on camera, so his part was hilariously played by Jason Childress as a very nervous 'Ned Quincy', who seemed to want to be regarded as some kind of agent doing vital undercover work.

All in all, great fun, some serious points made and the film showed that a huge budget is not necessary.