Category: Documentary of the Week

I Like Killing Flies (2004). Directed by Matt Mahurian (who has been an illustrator for Time Magazine for more than two decades. Mahurian designed the infamous O.J. Simpson cover where he and the magazine were accused of darkening Simpson's skin for effect).

Plot: A year in the life of Kenny Shopsin, a foul-mouthed, philisophical restaurant owner in New York's Greenwich Village. His eponymous diner Shopsins had been his domain for 32 years, with his wife and five children waiting tables while manned the kitchen and its 900-item menu. The year of the documentary, a rent hike forces Shopsins to move around the corner.

That's about all that happens.

Thoughts: There isn't a lot to this movie other than Kenny Shopsin, his list of bromides as long as his menu and one-of-a-kind restaurant, now located at the Essex Street Market on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Maybe you could argue this movie is about New York's unique characters and their gradual extinction. But none are featured other than Mr. Shopsin. Which tells this movie is about a filmmaker is about a unique guy whom he followed around for a year or so.

Why See? If you like food, like New York, its weirder residents and say, the first two movies of Errol Morris's career, you'll like this movie. Otherwise, you probably won't. I can guarentee you Kenny Shopsin wouldn't care either way. He'd probably tell you to go fuck yourself.