Have always loved the tapes, but the people that "made" them and the people they interacted with... my god what a bunch of self important blow hards. You held your mic to a wall and laughed at 2 old drunks with your friends, stop. You made a local theater play, stop. And so on. Actively disliked everyone by the end and wanted the movie to just be over.
"No, I'm not some sort of fucking nut!"
"hahahah"
"Giggle all you want! Giggle! Giggle, dirty little man! You always giggle falsely! You don't have a decent giggle in you!"
"I am a decent-"
"SHUT UP LITTLE MAN!"
Review by drqshadowBlockedParent2020-02-05T21:03:09Z
The story of Raymond and Peter, mean drunks and awful roommates whose constant shouting matches - committed to tape by frustrated neighbors - made them an unwitting, unsuspecting pair of underground celebrities. Like the thematically-similar Winnebago Man, the quest to learn more about these clueless cult legends is much more rewarding than what's actually at the end of the trail. While the focus hovers on revisiting the tapes, hearing the men who recorded them reminisce about the glory days, and watching dozens of talking heads throw on a headset and burst into genuine fits of laughter, it's a light, cheery smile a minute. Later, when the inherent humor of the material begins to fade, the whole picture begins to look downright pathetic.
Hearing about the legal struggles that surrounded the story's film rights, witnessing the self-important ruminations of the guys who held their mics to the wall, seeing how confused and flabbergasted Peter was about the phenomenon, captured on film years later... these actually take away from what made the tapes so enjoyable in the first place. As a momentary distraction, an escape from the mundane to voyeuristically laugh at the worst state of the human condition, the tapes are in their element and at their best. This level of over-inspection only rubs away the veneer and many of the laughs.