We Cause Scenes

This documentary is the attempt of a mediocre improv artist at reviving the 15 minutes of fame that New York City already gave him. All of the best moments are in the preview. The remaining 90 minutes are of artist himself talking about himself -which is an act that anyone can witness for free at just about any NYU dive bar. My main issues are as follows: While Charlie Todd may have his talents, and clearly enough charisma and motivation to see an idea through to the end, it does not change the fact that he talks about himself way too much in this documentary....and that is boring. The events are not documented very well. So the viewer feels like they are watching a low budget episode of 'You're on Candid Camera'...except it is not free on Network TV.

This film is basically about having fun and creating scenes where things seem to be a little bland. The main character followed in this documentary is Charlie Todd who created "Improv Everywhere". The original stunt was that his friends rode on the subway with no pants on. I do not remember when the initial train ride took place, because it was apparently no big deal; but I do remember hearing about it when there were several arrests during one such occurrence a few years later. There are many more created scenes in this film and I remember most of them. One of my favorites (even to this day) is the frozen subway; where about a hundred people at a particular time scattered themselves throughout Grand Central Station in New York City and they stood immobilized for approximately five minutes. Then all at once everyone started moving again. It would have been so cool to be there for that one. However, I have to agree with one of the commentators that I would not have wanted to be kissing someone at the time. I think that would be very hard to do. I also think that the hypnosis stunt was pretty disturbing, but the more I think about it the funnier it is. This film addresses some folk's fears of hypnotist; which is that they hypnotize you and then they leave you that way. Like I say, disturbing…… yet funny. I also found it interesting (but not surprising) that the stunts became more popular as the technology evolved. Since there was no way to show the stunts that you had just filmed, the only way that you could tell people about what happened was when you wrote about it. Now this is called a blog; but then you had to build your own web page using html and it was very difficult to do, so I guess Charlie was very much determined that this is what he wanted to do. I also thought that it was ironic that the company that was the first to support him, then…. turn him down, then ……. got re-interested when the videos started going viral, then….. interviewed him again to congratulate him on his success. Crazy. I also like the fact that they explained the difference between flash mobs and Improv Everywhere. For the most part, flash mobs have pretty much died out, but I bet that once a year, folks will still be riding the subway without pants .

Producer: What do you mean there's nothing left?

Editor: There's nothing left. There is not a single other clip or sound bite that could possibly be considered interesting. We've got 30 minutes of usable material...max.

Producer: Listen, I don't care what you have to do, but this doc has to be feature length.

Editor: Ummm, okay... we've got this one clip where he goes on a digression about how cool it was to shoot HD video.

Producer: Can you make a two minute segment out of it?

Editor: I guess.

My oldest daughter and I just finished watching this documentary. And while we'll admit that some of it was very charming and fun, some portions of the film made us feel a bit uncomfortable. It seems that the guy featured in this movie is very creative and fun...but he also seemed a bit narcissistic and oblivious to the harm he might have caused.

Charlie Todd is the originator of something he calls 'Improv Everywhere'. It's the notion that the world around him is a wonderful place to play pranks--pranks which are much like performance art. The point is to make folks laugh--and many of their stunts are very funny. Occasionally, however, we noticed times when their pranks didn't always seem thought out and folks could have gotten hurt--and I hate to think that this film might encourage more of this thoughtless behavior. Take, for instance, the walking onto the subway pant-less stunt. It's kind of funny (at least until the bit got over-used). But in the first instance they showed, it consisted of a man in winter standing next to a woman--- and he's in his boxer shorts. Considering that the train car is rather empty, our first thoughts were 'that lady must feel REALLY threatened to have a guy standing this close to her--perhaps she's worried he'll hurt her'. Her body language seemed to say this. I am sure this also will run through many viewers' heads--so why didn't this occur to Todd and his friends?

Despite a few misgivings, I am not trashing the documentary. Much of it is enjoyable and the pranks are generally wonderful. Just understand, that there is a disturbing sense of entitlement about a few of them and the documentary completely glosses over this.

Oh, and speaking of entitlement...one part of the show really irritated me. Todd decided to quit his day job to follow this dream. So be it-- good for him. But then they show him proudly showing off his Unemployment check after he quit! Todd...this money is for people who legitimately need help to feed their families and make ends meet. Just my two cents worth about that. Other times, folks seemed hurt by his actions and he seemed to portray himself as a victim. As I said...at times the film sure seemed a tad narcissistic.

Now, about the quality of the film. It was interesting, was well made and kept me watching. I would like to have seem some interviews from the police, local government or stores in which their pranks occurred. But, it did convey who these people were very well.

We Cause Scenes is probably one of the happiest films that I have seen in forever, and the fact that it is a documentary makes it even more extraordinary. I sat with a perpetual smile on my face throughout most of this film about the captivating impact that Charlie Todd has made on the world by bringing his special talent for improvisation to the biggest stage in the world, his city of New York in any and every way imaginable. It's always interesting to see how something phenomenal originates and grows to become acceptable worldwide. I may not be as worldly as I think that I am, but when the saga began with an impersonation of Ben folds, I was sitting there thinking, 'Who is Ben Folds?'. Subsequently, I have Googled him and am now up to date. This story makes you think of how much better the world could be if only others could find a way to keep people working together and having fun. The really amazing thing is that I recall when the 'Men Without Pants on the Subway' prank was covered by the media. But had no knowledge of the relationship with NBC that provided for the great production quality of several other pranks. This documentary was inspiring in that it shows that you can do what you love, inspire others and bring people together. It was an added treat at the screening to have the director Matt Adams present, and to learn that it took him five and a half years to complete this project because of having so much footage to comb through to get a good representation of what it took to get to today for Charlie Todd in his journey through Improv. It was fascinating to see the U2 prank played out and how passionate people are about their musicians especially given that the songs were out of key and the crowds were still wowed. As in any situation in life there are haters. Seeing how Charlie was vilified when trying to give someone a gift that their talent may have not rendered on its own just gave some truth to the saying that no good deed goes unpunished. Fortunately, we get to see Charlie Todd come back from the setback to a place where he could control his art and his destiny. I hope that the Improv Everywhere phenomena continues to grow because the originator of this feat is an artistic genius.