Film
Confessions of a Superhero
Four strangers in cheap spandex work the sidewalk outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre, posing for tourist photos as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Hulk. What starts as a funny premise curdles into something sadder and more tender: a study of people who moved to LA to be someone else and ended up, quite literally, wearing a costume to survive. Funny, then quietly devastating.
If you liked this
American Movie1999
Mark Borchardt's doomed, heroic quest to finish a horror short in his Wisconsin backyard is the gold standard for documentaries about people who refuse to stop dreaming even when the dream is clearly not working out.
But It's cringe-heavy in places, and some viewers find it hard to tell if they're laughing with him or at him.
Best Worst Movie2009
The star of Troll 2 grapples with becoming a cult icon for the worst possible reasons — a warm, funny look at fame arriving sideways, uninvited, and stranger than anything you'd choose.
But You'll get more out of it if you've actually seen Troll 2, which not everyone has, or wants to.
Grey Gardens1976
Big Edie and Little Edie, once East Coast society royalty, now living in genteel ruin — a masterclass in how people narrate their own decline as something closer to glamour.
But The Beales' co-dependency is uncomfortable to watch and the film offers no resolution or relief from it.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
The Day of the Locust1975no page yet
Same city, same delusion, four decades before spandex — this is the novelistic, fictionalized ancestor of everyone standing outside Grauman's hoping to be discovered.
A sprawling, savage fiction about the dreamers, hangers-on and hopefuls who wash up in 1930s Hollywood chasing stardom and find only its wreckage — the same sidewalk, decades earlier, before anyone put on a cape.
But It's long, cynical, and builds to a genuinely disturbing finale that some find gratuitous rather than illuminating.
More like this (8)
The Wrestler2008
Mickey Rourke as an aging performer who can't separate himself from the costumed persona that made him briefly famous — the toll of playing a character your body can no longer sustain.
But It's bleak and physically brutal, with little humour to leaven the sadness.
Overnight2003no page yet
A bartender gets one shot at Hollywood stardom and torches it spectacularly through his own arrogance — a rise-and-fall doc that's excruciating, hilarious, and a genuine cautionary tale.
But The subject is so unlikeable that some viewers struggle to enjoy watching him self-destruct.
Marwencol2010
A man builds an elaborate miniature WWII town in his backyard to process trauma, populating it with dolls that stand in for himself and everyone he knows — fantasy as survival mechanism.
But It's gentler and more melancholy than a plot summary suggests, without the comic relief of costumed street performers.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston2006
An outsider musician's talent and mental illness are so tangled together that fame becomes both his salvation and his undoing — a moving, unresolved portrait of art made from instability.
But It's a heavier watch, with real mental health crises depicted rather than implied.
Winnebago Man2010no page yet
The furious star of a viral outtake reel is tracked down decades later, and the documentary becomes a surprisingly moving meditation on unwanted fame and what it does to a person.
But The tonal shift from comedy to pathos partway through catches some viewers off guard.
Cutie and the Boxer2013no page yet
Two aging artists, married forty years, still scrapping for recognition neither has fully received — a quieter, more dignified cousin to the hustle on Hollywood Boulevard.
But It's slow and intimate rather than colourful or dramatic, with none of the costumed spectacle.
The Rehearsal2022
Both are about people who put on a role to make their real life bearable, and about the strange grief of not knowing anymore where the costume ends and you begin.
Nathan Fielder builds elaborate simulations to help ordinary people practice difficult moments in their lives, blurring documentary and performance until you can't tell where the real person ends and the character begins.
But It's deliberately uncomfortable, ethically murky, and some viewers find its games with reality manipulative rather than illuminating.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)2014
It's Superman's psyche problem turned into a prestige fever dream — what happens when the mask you wore for money starts wearing you back, dressed up as A-list satire instead of sidewalk tragedy.
A washed-up actor famous for playing a superhero decades ago tries to reclaim his dignity on a Broadway stage, literally haunted by the growling voice of his old alter ego.
But Its swooping camerawork and theatrical bombast are a world away from the documentary's plain, sad realism.
People
Directing
- Matthew OgensDirector
Production
- Charlie GruetProducer