Pitch (1997)

They've got to be kidding

In watching Pitch, an 81-minute documentary about two screenwriters out to sell their screenplay and make their Hollywood dreams come true, two strong but distinct points come to mind.

The first is that these guys are total idiots.

The second is that they are very clever self-promoters who managed to get audiences with Roger Ebert, Neil Simon, and Arthur Hiller, and passings with a host of other celebrities whose paths they cross at the Toronto Film Festival and in Hollywood. I'm not sure which way to go on this because every time I decided to invest my interest in the second point, I kept going back to the first.

There's a nudge-nudge-wink-wink attitude about the whole thing as well. I found myself hoping that this was more of a mockumentary because, after all, to have a camera following you around for every moment that they show reveals some amount of planning and forethought on their part. Not only that, but the script they are pitching sounds so absolutely stupid that it forces you to believe that it's all a big put-on, otherwise there's no other reason to watch more than a few minutes.

Even if that were the case, the situation they find themselves in at the end of the film leaves me with my original conclusion. These guys are idiots. May 3, 2004

Al Pacino - cameo only. Enjoyable documentary though!

This isn't an Al Pacino movie, but an independent film by two... film makers (Spencer Rice and Kenny Hotz) who are caught in the act of disrupting the Toronto International Film Festival to sell a comedy script they had written about a Mafia Godfather's accidental sex change. Anyone interested in the movie business or writers trying to sell a script will love this comedic 81 minute documentary.

This 1997 film includes cameos by: Al Pacino, Matt Dillon, Roger Ebert, Eric Stoltz, Ileana Douglas, Fred Williamson, Norman Jewison, Arthur Hiller, Neil Simon February 26, 2002

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