The Amazing Johnathan Documentary

[peter]

This well, documentary charts the final farewell tour of The Amazing Johnathan as he embarks, following a period of enforced retirement due to a diagnosis of terminal illness, on a series of five concerts in smallish venues around the US.

I'd never heard of him before seeing this movie, and have to say was not terribly enamored of the man I discovered, terminal illness notwithstanding. He seems to have made a career out of being nasty on stage - an 'alternative' magician I suppose you would call him - and fueled his way through it on a cocktail of drugs and alcohol which, even in the decline of his condition, he seems determined to stick with. He comes across as being a completely self centered individual who has little empathy with others and even less interest in developing any. The shenanigans portrayed in this documentary are presented as being for real - and for reasons of not spoiling the movie I'm not going to go into them - but I have my doubts. The highly respected producer of the award winning documentary Man on Wire seems to have been roped into this at some point (and in a nebulous way to say the least) in order to give it credibility, and while the unfolding events have a sort of morbid fascination to them, the characters involved leave one feeling that it's all a bit grubby. One comes away feeling slightly soiled, not knowing to what extent one is being made a monkey of.

Watch this if you have a particular liking for documentaries, as an excercise in seeing how the line between truth and fiction can be blurred by those with a mind to hoodwink on a level further away from that which it appears. It's interesting to a point - not massively entertaining, but interesting nevertheless.