[img]7|left|||no_popup[/img] Is the Hollywood machine’s decision-making process, the formula by which it sorts out the wheat scripts from the chaff, merely a crap shoot? Is there an explanation for why Hollywood puts out such awful movies on a consistent basis? These are, perhaps, serious questions at the cotton-candy heart of “Crap Shoot”, but they're also not especially profound. The explanation for how Hollywood studios make decisions doesn’t require advanced academics: scripts are chosen in line with commercial as well as artistic interests through a network of serendipitously plugged-in people and several layers of decision-makers. In other words: money, connections, and committees. It’s hardly the business end of a taser to realize that, in the final cut, not all chosen scripts are the “best”, although what constitutes the “best” is, the po-mo chorus will rightly point out, quite subjective. While it is worrisome that movie agents rejected the disguised Casablanca script as unworthy of representation, to say that that to err is Hollywood is a bit harsh. Profit-driven maliciousness or even incompetence explains only so much. The old “it looked good on paper” phenomenon picks up the slack along with intangible subjectives like “taste” and context. Of course, given how much money the public pays for movies that prompt upturned noses from enlightened film critics, one has to wonder if maybe Hollywood isn’t a bit cannier than we’d like to give it credit.

Ken Close’s interviews with folks suck as Tom Hofbauer, writer/director of “In the Company of Strangers,” leave no doubt that “Crap Shoot” embodies some of the indie-film outlaw’s allergic reaction to Hollywood’s commercial nature. That cold chill down the back? The spectre of Art, ever the lurking presence. But while the intersection of Art and Commerce makes for great coffee-table discussions, the controversy du jour has to be the assumption that Hollywood makes mostly crappy movies. Does it really? Let us also ask: is independent filmmaking any less a crap shoot from the movie-goers perspective? Ultimately, whether the decision to make a movie arises out of commercial consideration or occurs because of increasingly accessible filmmaking equipment and technologies, the end result is the same: there are good movies, there are bad movies, and sometimes, oh sometimes, there are great movies.

Too Much Weight

But all this is putting a bit too much weight on the frail shoulders of a half-hearted documentary more concerned with the modest goal of getting a laugh than busting open the Hollywood bunker with a penetrating analysis. Silliness centered around the good-natured but hapless narrator (James Horton), dream sequences, satirical and unexpectedly sharp non-sequiturs jabbing at everything from Bush economics to Morgan Spurlock’s “Super-Size Me;” it’s a parade of comic situations punctuated by earnest interviews that tend to reemphasize the same point, but, in all fairness, also provoke a bit of thought beyond what we take for granted about filmmaking. And there’s also gratuitous card magic, which might very well make “Crap Shoot” the first documented case of “magiploitation” in a feature film.

By the end, we’re left with this: the film might raise interesting questions and then let its attention wander to goofing off, but at least the wandering, courtesy of Ken Close and his buddy Jim, is disarmingly entertaining.

Entertainment Value: ** (out of two)

Technical Quality: * (out of two)

Crap Shoot. Written and directed by Kenneth R. Close. Starring Kenneth R. Close and James Horton. 97 minutes. Distributed by Echelon Studios.

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