Performing Arts - Crap Shoot: The Documentary

A research scientist and his narrator cruise the endless urban maze of Los Angeles trying to find order in the chaotic world of feature filmmaking. Their fascinating discourse on Hollywoods creative development process degenerates into a hilarious road trip as their documentary about movies becomes a movie about documentaries. Imagine buying a new car and it won’t start. Or it starts, but runs so slowly that you nearly fall asleep while driving it. Or you’re driving along at a good clip when it suddenly veers off on its own down a road you didn’t want to travel, then crashes and burns. If the auto industry was anything like the movie industry this would happen all the time. People have demonstrated a nearly insatiable need to be entertained, and Hollywood has proven it doesn’t know how to consistently satisfy this need. Why is it that scores of great actors and outstanding directors, using the latest technological advances in photography and computer-generated imagery, financed by bank accounts bigger than the GDP of many nations, can’t seem to produce more than a mere handful of truly good movies each year? That’s the question Ken Close, one of America’s top research scientists and lifetime member of Mensa, attempts to answer in the award-winning documentary, Crap Shoot - The Documentary. Is what screenwriter William Goldman said, that Nobody knows anything about what makes a movie work really true? Is the movie business just a crap shoot, or does a hidden science guide all blockbuster hits? Join Ken on a fascinating journey through the bowels of Hollywood to discover why so many movies are crap. You’ll learn the science of making great films and have fun along the way as you watch a documentary that has more laughs than most studio-produced comedies. If you enjoy a good movie and wonder why they are so few and far between, then this is a must-see documentary!