By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Luke Poling | Tom Bean
Country: united_states
Year: 2013
Running time: 89
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1817235/combined
Chris says: “A brief bio of George Plimpton would say that he was a journalist and co-founder of venerable literary magazine The Paris Review. Still, more so than Jean Shepherd, Truman Capote or even David Sedaris, Plimpton was most famous for being himself. The idea seems commonplace now, but Plimpton pioneered first-person journalism by inserting himself into the reportage and becoming an active participant (thankfully, he had the extroverted and engagingly wry personality to pull this off). For people of my generation who only remember him for his late-in-life appearance on The Simpsons, this cheekily but accurately titled documentary is occasionally a little dry but often a revelation, drawing on tons of archival footage to create a stirring tribute and an enlightening analysis of his small but significant contribution to his field. While often dismissed as a dilettante for wanting to try everything and not commit to creating great art of his own, the man that emerges here comes off as someone who knew exactly what he was doing, but with an air of genuine curiosity rather than the career-driven cynicism that defines a majority of today’s reality TV ‘stars’—if Plimpton were still alive, you bet he’d have his own weekly series, and it would likely be great. 4 cats”