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quasimojo
Reviews
TV Junkie (2006)
Disturbing on an entirely unintentional level
What's sadder than throwing your children, wife, career, and health away for drugs? Throwing away your children, wife, career, and health away for a poorly done documentary about drugs. I have never written a movie review before, but after watching this film I felt compelled to express my horror and unease, not with the drug use or content of the film but more so with people's reactions and Kirkham himself. All in all, it seems as though audiences are split down the middle on this film. It's supporters seem to be responding to the concept more than the actual film, and often times relating the events to their own personal drama. On the other hand, it's detractors all seem to point a general unease and dislike for Kirkham. This shouldn't be shocking, as he is admittedly a drug abusing louse who periodically struck his wife, but I feel there is more to the feeling.
In every second of every scene, it felt as though Kirkham was playing to the camera, using these horrible situations to create some kind of artistic statement. I suppose there has to be a certain narcissism associated with filming diaries about your life, but there is something that seems to go deeper with Kirkham. Having spent his life in journalism (or whatever you would call Inside Edition), you could tell Kirkham was already formulating some narrative for how his story would play out. His long, meandering speeches throughout the movie, at times both sober and under the influence, seemed as though they were planned with forethought as notes to the eventual editor designed to put things into context.
The most troubling scene came when Kirkham was shown babysitting his children while drinking and using drugs. Kirkham takes the time to make sure every swig and puff is done center frame. Troubling in and of itself, the scene also highlights a fundamental flaw of the film as a whole. Since Kirkham had been a journalist, he was entirely familiar with the world of documentary film making. The viewer must begin to ask some disturbing questions. Was he taking drugs to satisfy his personal problems and chemical imbalances, or was he in fact taking drugs and ruining his children for a film? In the back of his mind, did he believe that filming his downfall might provide some kind of fame or financial success down the road? Would his drug problem have been as bad without the presence of the cameras? And most troubling of all, are the viewers and distributors of this film (and films like it) enablers, encouraging an endless cycle of people using their addictions to find careers in documentary films and self-help books and lectures. At the end of the film, it seems as though Kirkham has made a career off of lectures and seminars, using his own actions and past mistakes to make a living.
Perhaps the truest moment in the documentary was after his brief tenure as a news director/anchor in Texas. From his demeanor, it seemed as though he envisioned this as the great happy ending to his documentary. When the drugs come back to haunt him and he eventually looses his job, for the first time in the film it seemed as though he was genuinely surprised. After a few months off from filming, the old Kirkham returns, rambling through truisms, clichés, and overly dramatic pronouncements to put his situation once more back into his uncontrolled 'control'.
Aside from the many disturbing thematic issues, the documentary itself is poorly done. Gaps in the story are never quite filled in and there is no sense of timeline developed. Title cards are used sparingly, then suddenly reappear with a vengeance to fill in information. At a relatively short running time, the film still feels as though it stumbles onward for far too long with no purpose. The only credit I could give this film is that I truly feel as though it should be shown not only in documentary film classes, but also in classes regarding morality and ethics as a cautionary tale of the influence of filmmakers on their subject.