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If you're like me, you're probably a little bit sick of
people telling you how to get somewhere in the film
business. The advice is nearly always the same. In any case,
the better it is, the worse you feel. You know you should be
doing X, you also know that you're not doing X. The result:
guilt and existential nausea. Well, that's not a problem
with Fever Pitch, because all the advice given in this
comedy documentary is either utterly ignored or carried to
monstrous extremes by filmmaker/star, "award-winning"
actor-director Willard Morgan.
Largely taping himself with a lightweight camera held at
arm's length (a la the most famous shot from The Blair Witch
Project), the video starts out as a chronicle of Morgan's
efforts to make this film and to promote his last film,
"Festival Fever" about his experiences at Sundance (which
means that "Fever Pitch" is a film about making a film about
promoting a film about film promotion!).
Comprised largely of Morgan's thoughts while shopping at
Ralphs and Home Depot, "Fever Pitch" begins as a happily
neurotic semi-spoof of the vast industry of show-biz
instructional materials. As Morgan looks at possible gurus,
trenchant remarks (well, remarks, anyway) are provided by
such denizens of the lower media depths as "2-Day Film
School" maven S.S. Dov Simens (who instructs anyone who
thinks of film as an art form to immediately leave his
seminars), Tom Arnold, and Lloyd Kaufman of Troma fame. Also
along for the ride, so to speak, is irrepressible eccentric
and weird-car-king Dennis Woodruff. (If Dennis has ever
accosted you in a Hollywood-area coffee house to sell one of
his videos, raise your hand.) The only one to offer any real
face-time is Woodruff. He proves to be a dangerous
inspiration indeed.
The film slowly moves from neurosis to psychosis as Morgan
relentlessly pursues a meeting with the guy he would really
like to be his mentor, Michael Moore. Our hero becomes very
excited when an assistant informs him that the creator of
"Roger and Me" is planing to watch "Festival Fever." What
follows is a series of increasingly uncomfortable encounters
as Morgan pursues Moore whenever he's foolish enough to make
an L.A. area appearance. Things devolve quickly from
pleasant encounters with Moore's polite and supportive staff
and the equally polite Moore. Soon, Moore is referring to
Morgan as a "stalker" and Morgan either really is in the
midst of a harassment campaign or is just playing along for
the sake of this film. Moore, who invented this sort of
thing, seems to be really in pain at times, advising Morgan
over the phone to seek counseling and probably wondering,
since he never shut a factory down, just what he did to
deserve this.
The results are fairly entertaining throughout -- even if
too much footage consists of Michael Moore's chin -- and
mildly disturbing. However, it's a bit reassuring that the
film was actually co-written and edited by Jeffrey Orgill
(who produced with Catherine Fletcher). It's sort of nice to
know that Willard Morgan has any friends at all.
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