Jamie Kennedy's Heckler Looks Pretty Good! And Not Just Because I'm Afraid Of Joe Rogan
Via CC Insider, here's the trailer for Jamie Kennedy's documentary Heckler, which explores the psychology and cultural significance of the kind of assface who ruins live shows by yelling things at the performer. My favorite part is when one heckler tries to find common ground with his hecklee by explaining that he'd "rather sit through a Creed concert."
The diversity of the performers is impressive (did you ever think you'd see George Lucas, David Cross, Mike Ditka, and Joe Rogan on the same imdb page?), though the internet already knows what Joe Rogan thinks about criticism of any kind. Shiver. It's like heckling is the one issue that brings almost everyone together (that and the suckiness of Creed.) The parts where Jamie and others confront their own hecklers and point out that they have lousy jobs seem like they could cross over to the bully side (and the "Dude, let it go" side), but it should be fun to see the hecklers try to defend an impossible position. And hey, Jamie Kennedy should be happy: Son Of The Mask no longer has a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's now 5%.
Posted by Lindsay at 2:55 PM in Trailer
Tags: David Cross | Heckler | Jamie Kennedy | Joe Rogan
The problem with that movie, judging solely on the trailer, is that it seems to be equating heckling with criticism of any kind, and Internet/blog criticism specifically.
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Yeah. And chapeau to Jamie Kennedy for keeping that totally on-point "racism! yeah!" heckler in the movie. Because fuck that guy for pointing out that Jamie Kennedy's shitty joke was racist.
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whtvr. when i was ur age i killed w/ bar hands. ur loser. no one sleep u.
jr
Hopefully Joe Rogan addressed his SMS flame war with the new editor of suicidegum.com
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I actually saw this last year as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. The film does have some smart moments, but Kennedy's point - that crtics and hecklers are cruel to the creator rather than the work, gets lost because he himself makes fun or the critic and hecklers not their work. The focus should be "Why call me a rape baby if you hate the movie?" not "Your lack of sexual experience makes you unqualified to talk about my film."
More on what I saw here:
http://www.dead-frog.com/blog/entry/jamie_kennedys_heckler_if_you_cant_say_something_nasty/
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Hecklers are assholes, sure, and they ruin it for the people who enjoy Joe Rogan's particular brand comedy. It doesn't mean Rob Zombie's movies don't suck, and it doesn't mean Jamie Kennedy's jokes aren't awful.
There are plenty of successful, sex-having people who don't think bad comedians are funny. They don't heckle out of insecurity; they do it because they're drunk and the comedian sucks.
The insecure people are the ones who make movies about how all of their detractors are ugly.
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My girlfriend and I saw Heckler the other day and thought it was okay. There were a few celebrities that made parts of the movie interesting, but the majority was a little dull. Of course they all were anti-heckling and even anti bloggers, anti professional reviewers etc.., no one said they even once learned anything from negative criticism. At some point there had to have been constructive criticism, no? It would have been nice if just 5% of the movie focused on good criticism versus bad, which would show that Kennedy and the likes can distingush between the two and are open minded. It can be summed up in a sentence, Jamie Kennedy doens't like hecklers, which is understandable, but also disapproves of bloggers and movie reviewers, which is a freedom of speech that's here to stay. The celebrities all give their 2 cents agreeing with Kennedy, and that's pretty much it.
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