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Synopsis: Another child star who fucked up. |
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| REVIEW or FEATURE ARTICLE | ||
| Review by Andrew Shaw for Melbourne Community Voice (MCV). (Edited) Documentaries were fake from the start. In 1922, when Nanook of the North, a feature length doco about an Inuit hunter, was released, it stunned the world with its "reality". Later, the truth came out... More recently, Man Bites Dog and the <television> series People Like Us toyed with documentary conventions, and now Melbourne filmmakers Dean Francis and Katrina Mathers add their own pisstake with CRAZY RICHARD. Richard Veed (Richard Viede - it gets confusing here, as the actors are "playing themselves" to an extent) was a child soapie star who kind of grew up, took too many drugs, and is clawing his way back to the middle. Katrina Matters (Katrina Mathers), ambitious documentarist, feeds on Richard's need for exposure, his "I'm On, Therefore I Am" small screen obsession. She thinks she's making a documentary about Richard's comeback vehicle, a gay sitcom titled I Can't Even Think Straight!, but she's recording the trajectory of a furiously falling star. When should you stop shooting? Never. "Even if he tells you to turn the camera off," Katrina tells her cameraman, "jut keep filming". And there's plenty to film. Richard is an egotistical bitch: "I won't appear in some dumpy, working class mall," he tells his promoters. Cackling over the fate of other child stars - "Macaulay Culkin!" - he eye fucks the camera at every turn. Whether he's doing a line of coke with trannie trade or demanding multiple takes for a sex scene with his pretty male co-star, Viede is a real find. It's impossible not to watch those mascara-caked eyes, that world-devouring smile. Along with Katrina, he embodies the film's theme that there are people who watch and there are people who like to be watched - even if it kills them. Stand out scenes in CRAZY RICHARD include the workshop during which Francis (who plays the sitcom director) asks Richard to delivery his lines as frog, triggering a hissy walk out. Later, when Richard plays the gay card for publicity, the journalist reports: "Richard Veed is gay. Well duh!" Dominic McDonald's performance as Think Straight!'s German associate producer is textbook character development. From New Age Teutonic enthusiast to litigating Hollywood Nazi and back, the gear changes are imperceptible. ...CRAZY RICHARD's strength lies in Francis' editing. He's worked wonders with material shot on different formats from two different projects (Think Straight! was originally a sitcom pilot..)... he keeps the eye and mind engaged, cutting in dialogue and vision so hard you feel like slamming on the brakes. ...Keep an eye out for it - it's camp, it's queer, it's nasty. Damn it, it's even a little bit poetic. |
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