First Review Of American: The Bill Hicks Story And New Trailer
Check out the first word on the new Bill Hicks doc which premiered at the SWSX festival...
Quint over at AICN has posted his review of the doc, here are the highlights..
The personality I was familiar with was the opinionated, loud, intellectual, biting, borderline insulting comic from his later career. In my ignorance I thought that was Hicks from day one, but this movie, made with the cooperation of Bill’s close friends and family, showed me everything that led up to the Bill Hicks I knew, the good and the bad.
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Much as been made about this documentary’s use of animation and it’s pretty damn great. Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas use thousands of archival photos of Hicks from infancy all the way up to days before his death as a starting point and bring them to life in fascinating ways.
The animation here isn’t traditional animation, but a subtler kind that gives life to stories told by Hicks’ closest friends and family. Sometimes Harlock and Thomas cut back and forth between pictures like it’s a scene in a feature film and sometimes they’ll use motion from a series of stills that make a 16 year old Bill Hicks look like he’s turning around and looking at us. Sometimes they pull the focus of a particular photo out and drop the background far back.
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Visually the movie’s fantastic and it does act as a bit of a highlight reel of Hicks’ best material. The people surrounding me were laughing just as hard as I was knowing most of the later material. I don’t know for sure, but I had the feeling that the young guys sitting around me weren’t very familiar with Hicks before the film and seeing them bent over wheezing for breath as Hicks unleashed his particular form of comedy genius made me smile.
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There was a preacher quality to Hicks. He combined comedy with real insight into the machinations of the world we live in, cutting through bullshit immediately and offering up a positive message of hope and love. He was a fascinating man and AMERICAN: THE BILL HICKS STORY is a fascinating and incredibly entertaining movie.
Cool! I never doubted that as a Hicks fan I wouldn't enjoy this, but its nice to know that its of a particularly high quality. Here is the trailer
You can check out the full review by clicking on the link below.
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