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Through interviews with critics, comics and others in the public eye, "Heckler," a documentary by Michael Addis and comedian Jamie Kennedy, which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival, is an investigation of that relationship and an effort to understand what aggressive criticism does to those under the lights.Going on tour after his 2005 film "Son of the Mask," Kennedy found that audiences were more hostile toward him.
"People were [heckling] more often," he said in an interview this week, "getting angrier and more aggressive." At the same time, "Mask" was being critically panned, particularly on the internet, where some of the reviews had descended from critiques to personal attacks."
"The turning point," Addis said, "was that because of [movie review index] Rotten Tomatoes, I was able to pick up the worst reviews and we were able to pinpoint those writers, and since we were already on the road, go to them and interview them.
So we got this really fun footage of Jamie interviewing people who had basically shit on him."
Kennedy added: "A blogger will start with something negative to get people to read their blog, and from there they start picking the person apart, whether it's the director, the singer, an actor, whatever.
They get people to comment and then somebody else comments on that, and it becomes this shitfest of people who have time on their hands."
Both acknowledge that critics are an important part of any art form, but they see no point ...
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