Lisa Picard Is Famous

Griffin Dunne (son of famous scribe, Dominick Dunne) seems bent on becoming famous himself. Why I do believe he'd go as far as to star in a film about a talking penis. Dunne is just one of those people who seems obsessed with that which eludes him, fame. With only one break out performance in 1981's American Werewolf in London, Dunne is simply on the fringe of success.

This is the problem with Lisa Picard is Famous.

Like Dunne's career, it is idle, has little to say and is almost -- just a hair more and it could have been -- with more time, maybe. And there you have it. Mr. Dunne's career mirrors this movie.

Chris Guest's mockumentaries, "Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show and the now legendary "Spinal Tap" is what Dunne and his co-conspirators were aiming for. Sadly, the comedy in the film is forced. The all ad-lib dialog might have worked if DeWolf and Kirk were stronger performers. But if you'll note, Kirk's only offering since this film is the flower seller in ill-fated Time Machine" and DeWolf has done nothing since.

To pull off such a crazy stunt as this, the film needed a new direction, a fresh idea on the old theme. It lacks spontaneity. It revels in stereotype. And all those friends of Dunne and Sorvino (she produced it) who made guest appearances during the film discussing fame, didn't reveal anything we didn't already know. Furthermore, their cameos felt forced and a bit of an intrusion to the main story line.

The bottom line with films such as these (mockumentaries) is liking the characters. I did not like Lisa and utterly hated the "stereotyped to death" gay actor. With this said, the only person I felt for was her boyfriend, whose name I didn't catch. Lastly, I say to the "famous people" exploited in the film, "Shame on you for associating yourselves in this fashion."

I saw this in Lawrence, KS, where one of the co-writers & principal characters (Laura Kirk/"Lisa Picard") had gone to college. The reviews of it in the Topeka paper made it look interesting; the paper said it was a very small budget production and there were only six copies of the film so I wanted to see it before it moved on to other theaters.

I'm glad we saw it. It's an interesting film, built on the premise that a director is making a documentary of an aspiring actor (Laura Kirk/Lisa Picard) who is just passing the cusp on her way to fame and stardom. Some of the film's questions are, "what does fame/success do to a person -- does it change their walk, talk, the way they behave?" And so this documentary will answer those questions.

This form is called a "mockumentary" -- somewhat in the vein of "Waiting for Guffman" and others. "Slice of life" would also be as appropriate and more accurate for this film in my view. "Waiting for Guffman" was a parody of the community theater scene in which the characters were all as broadly drawn and about as deep as most cartoon figures. While there was a slight tinge of that in "Famous," the characters are more complex, more layered, more fully formed as people.

The actors are excellent in their roles, both major and minor parts. All the roles are psychologically believable and quite realistic. The film is kind, funny, yet still letting us see a layer or two below and beyond surface appearances.

On the way to its conclusion, we get several surprises.

As a view of the lives of aspiring actors trying to break in, it was great. It would have been an even more touching movie if it had allowed us to empathize or identify just a little more with its lead character.

But what talent, in both writing and acting!! We'll see more from these people and they'll be even better.

Historically, Hollywood has done a lousy job of capturing what really goes on behind the scenes in its own industry. The "dream factory" that thrives on creating glossy visions of idealized lives has never been very good at examining its own underbelly.

The sole exception to this rule is Robert Altman's "The Player," a film that satirically nails Hollywood's shallow desperation with pitch-perfect accuracy. "The Player" finally has its bookend companion piece in "Lisa Picard is Famous," a "mockumentary" about an aspiring actress.

It comes as no surprise that this very funny and painfully true-to-life film was created by actors. Produced by actress Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite") and directed by actor/director Griffin Dunne ("After Hours"), the movie was written by and stars unknown actors Lisa Kirk and Nat DeWolf.

Kirk plays Lisa Picard, a fiercely determined New York actress who, after a series of minor parts and commercials, is poised for her major breakthrough "in a small but pivotal role" in a tv movie starring Melissa Gilbert.

DeWolf plays Lisa's gay friend and fellow actor Tate Kelly whose major credit is an ill-fated gig as an extra on "Days of Our Lives." He's set to debut in his autobiographical Off Off Off Broadway one man show that "deals with issues of gay bashing and homophobia" (although he's had no first hand experience with either).

The gloriously deadpan film is told through the eyes and lens of a documentary film maker (played by Dunne) who's trying to capture the esssence of fame by following Lisa. Tossing her beret into the air a la Mary Richards, she appears to be on the brink of stardom.

Although it borrows the mockumentary style of "This is Spinal Tap" and "Waiting for Guffman," the film ultimately goes beyond mere satire. By scrutinizing the lives of these desperately hungry actors (in squirmingly painful detail), it sheds much more meaningful light on the subject of fame than Woody Allen's "Celebrity," which focused on the lives of the shallow and famous.

While Hollywood typically depicts actresses as vain divas (see Catherine Zeta Jones in "America's Sweethearts"), Kirk's performance beautifully captures more fundamental elements of an actor's pathology including a self-absorption that runs so deep that she doesn't even know it's there.

She experiences a callback audition for an Advil commercial as a desperate matter of life and death. In analyzing her character's motivation in the Japanese horror flick "A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell," she's careful not to give away the film's ending, "in case it's ever released."

The underlying joke of "Lisa Picard is Famous" is that by chronicling the unknown actress' every move, the documentary itself elevates her to a kind of unwarranted fame, while plaguing her daily life with fame's intrusiveness.

Contributing additional irony, humor and depth are sly interviews with the likes of Carrie Fisher and Buck Henry. A handful of cameo performances aid in the illusion of documentary reality, including Sandra Bullock, Charlie Sheen, Penelope Ann Miller and Spike Lee.

While some of the gags push the limits of deadpan reality (like Lisa's erotic Wheat Chex commercial), most of the film's humor is dead on. Tate's hilariously banal gay monologue is sure to strike a chord with those who've seen one too many self-revelatory one man shows.

What struck me about this film was how truly believable the "documentary' within the film is. BUT Seeing as how the film fell flat towards the end, losing its sense of direction, i would have preferred to watch a "real" documentary on the subject.

Lisa Picard Is Famous is a clever mockumentary directed by Griffin Dunne that follows an aspiring actress while she strives for stardom. The humor is extremely subtle and dry, and I found myself actually laughing out loud a whole lot more than I would during your average Hollywood-industrialized comedy. It is well acted, well executed and definitely worth watching just to catch some of the many absolutely hilarious celebrity cameos. (Most notably Spike Lee, who looks like he is about to crack up at any second). Before this viewing, I only had a passing knowledge of Griffin Dunne's work and after this biting film I plan to keep an eye out for his future productions.

--Shelly