Reviews of Paul Williams Still Alive 2012
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If you’re looking for an in depth analysis into the life and career of 70s pop icon Paul Williams, this documentary is probably your best, worst, and only choice. For what we have here with Paul Williams: Still Alive isn’t some kind of polished VH1 retrospective full of praise and insight, but a sentimental, disorderly look at how a neurotic filmmaker tries to film a disagreeable subject and stumbles nearly every step of the way.
And it’s absolutely fascinating to…
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Wonderful, absolutely wonderful. Crazy how many hits he wrote before disappearing. His song on the new Daft Punk album is still the best thing about it.
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The mark of a good documentary is when the film maker can take a subject that one has NO interest in, and make the film compelling and entertaining.
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Notes:
Seen once -
A study of a filmmaker almost ruining his own movie.
I was trepidatious going in, having heard that Stephen Kessler had made himself as much the subject of the film as Paul Williams. Thankfully it's not as heinous as I expected, until it becomes far worse. For the most part it becomes clear that Williams kind of puts Kessler into the film himself, and their relationship is quite fascinating, but Kessler's narration is obtrusive and insanely irritating.
The absolute nadir…
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I was so looking forward to this documentary, and indeed it did reaffirm my affinity for the greatness that is Paul Williams, but the doc falters due to the ineptitude of its filmmaker. He uses Paul to work out his own frustratingly self-indulgent insecurities. He's ultimately just a giant tool and the pacing and effectiveness of the doc suffers because of him.
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One of the worst music documentaries I have ever seen. The director pulls the narrative of this film out of his ass, annoys his subject, and makes the film so much about himself that any time it truly focuses on its subject it feels like he's just waiting for his time to talk about himself again.
I love Paul Williams and grew up with his music. He deserved better than this garbage.
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Stephen Kessler’s documentary about the diminutive singer-songwriter can be incredibly frustrating. The director falls into the documentary trap of making the story about himself as much as his subject, and WIlliams himself gets visibly annoyed when Kessler interrupts a heartfelt anecdote about his father to ask about something mudane. But that discomfort creates a kind of tension that makes this go where a conventional documentary would never tread. And it makes for one strange buddy movie.
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Was not expecting this to be one of those documentaries where the filmmaker is as much the focus as the ostensible subject, but here we are - at one point Stephen Kessler literally points the camera at a mirror, showing him sitting there. His digressions also include where he lived as a child, his filmmaking career (he did Vegas Vacation and that one Taco Bell commercial with the stretchy cheese), the value in ignoring United States travel advisories, and 70s…
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I like it because it's Paul Williams. But I don't it because the director is awful. The director didn't know how to film this movie properly. He is very annoying and an idiot. He made me feel very angry to watch this movie. The director shouldn't be in this movie. If you really like Paul.
I will say that you don't watch this movie. -
I think Paul Williams is great and I loved listening to him talk and seeing him, but the filmmaker ruined everything I had wanted from this movie. This is less about Paul Williams and more about Stephen Kessler annoying the shit out of Paul Williams and not taking a hint. I rolled my eyes SO MANY TIMES watching him freak out about shit like fucking terrorists in the Philippines. I think the line that killed it for me and I…
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