For Further Consideration..

I was flipping the cable channels late-night a couple of nights ago when I saw part of a documentary called "Hecklers." Comedian Jamie Kennedy (the one from the aptly named "Jamie Kennedy Experiment") decided to go after all the critics, hecklers and bloggers who either gave him bad reviews or insulted him while he's onstage doing stand-up comedy.

The film has self-indulgent and dumb comedy bits, but the talking-heads documentary stuff is interesting. The first third is about hecklers (including cool footage of some comedians taking revenge on their nemeses). The second is about critics, which, as you'd probably guess, get a bad rap here. Kennedy still has deep issues about the drubbing he received for "Mask 2" (he suffered a fairly severe depression over it). He interviews a few critics (including Leonard Maltin & Richard Roeper) about what they do and whether they feel any remorse about giving a harsh review (or if they consider the feelings of the artist when they do). Kennedy also gets a general consensus that so long as critics back up their feelings (rather than just saying `you suck'), there's a place for them in the conversation. He does the same with internet bloggers in the last third of the film.

The point is brought up by a few filmmakers who sound off in "Hecklers": "well, who do these critics think they are? How can they criticize our movies until they've gone and made a movie of their own?" I still think it's a specious argument, but if the conversation about the topic is the most important thing, then "Hecklers" is fairy engaging a piece of that conversation:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903849/