November 2, 2007

Press ClippingsBy Maggie Cortes

November 2, 2007

FILM

Tracking Shots

Confessions of a Superheroby Robert WilonskyOctober 30th, 2007 1:14 PM

A more beautiful documentary you're unlikely to find—Matt Ogens has composed every scene as though it could be freeze-framed and hung on a wall. But beneath its beauty is the kind of ugly truth about Hollywood Boulevard pan-handlers—struggling actors and daydream believers—who dress up in shabby blockbuster attire, hoping to collect tourists' spare change in exchange for a gag Polaroid. Ogens focuses on a low-rent Justice League: Superman fetishist Chris Dennis, Batman rage-aholic Max Allen, small-town prom queen turned Wonder Woman Jennifer Gehrt, and a homeless Hulk named Joe McQueen. Ogens treats them with considerable kindness, so what could have been a condescending descent into bottom-feeding turns into a loving, often heartbreaking portrait of decent people trying to scrape by. Dennis emerges as the star as he battles for truth, justice, and the American way on his own little piece of real estate, where evildoers smoking cigarettes in Wolverine costumes threaten the enterprise. By the time he meets up with Margot Kidder at a costume contest, you'll believe the man can fly.

Confessions of a SuperheroDirected by Matt OgensNovember 2 through 8Two Boots Pioneer

Better than Clooney.Joseph Viles

November 2, 2007

'SUPERHEROES' & WEAKNESSESBy V.A. MUSETTO

RATING:

November 2, 2007 -- IT'S not easy being a superhero, especially when you have to dress up as a comic book character, stand on Hollywood Boulevard and pose for snapshots with tourists, always being careful to note that you accept tips.

"Confessions of a Superhero," a warm documentary by Matt Ogens, looks at four of these struggling actors: Christopher Lloyd Dennis (Superman), Joe McQueen (the Hulk), Jennifer Gehrt (Wonder Woman) and George Clooney look-alike Maxwell Allen (Batman).

Most interesting is Dennis, who lives in an apartment overflowing with Superman kitsch and explains: "I consider myself to be a historian of Superman and the keeper of artifacts."

One woman Dennis encounters on the street buries herself in his costumed arms and proclaims, "I love Superman."

Others aren't so kind. Johnny Grant, billed as the "honorary mayor of Hollywood" (whatever that means), labels Dennis and his ilk a bunch of dirty panhandlers, although he does note that he says hello to some of them.

Ogens remains officially neutral. You, on the other hand, will most likely feel sorry for these wannabe superheroes.

Running time: 97 minutes. Not rated (nothing objectionable). At the Two Boots Pioneer, Third Street and Avenue A.

Christopher Lloyd Dennis is one of a group of struggling actors that parades around Hollywood in superhero outfits. They're profiled in a new documentary.

November 2, 2007

SHORT TAKES

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO

3 stars

Chronicle of several celebrity impersonators in Hollywood. At the Pioneer (1:32). NR: Mature themes.

One of the great things about living in this city is the constant potential for new discoveries. You've just found one of this week's hidden treasures.

Documentaries about obsessive eccentrics are becoming increasingly common, but rarely are they as affecting as Matthew Ogens' chronicle of four celebrity impersonators who can't decide if they are living their dreams or watching them dashed.

These aspiring actors spend their days dressed as superheroes, posing cheerfully for pictures on Hollywood Blvd. At night they go home to tiny apartments that are either starkly empty or cluttered to the point of suffocation. Homelessness, addiction, humiliation and fear are among the demons they fight while looking for better lives or, at least, meaning within the ones they already have. - Elizabeth Weitzman

November 2, 2007

MOVIE REVIEW

Confessions of a Superhero (2007) Of Birds and PlanesBy MATT ZOLLER SEITZPublished: November 2, 2007

Superman doesn’t solicit donations, but he accepts tips.

So says Christopher Dennis, the Hollywood Boulevard version of the Man of Steel, one of many costumed performers — panhandlers really — profiled in Matt Ogens’s documentary “Confessions of a Superhero.”

Mr. Dennis, son of the actress Sandy Dennis, is a former crystal meth addict who owns $90,000 worth of Superman memorabilia and dates a psychologist. Wonder Woman, played by Jennifer Gehrt, is a homecoming queen from small-town Tennessee. The Incredible Hulk, a k a Joe McQueen, is an African-American North Carolina native who is tired of kids asking him why the Hulk is black. Batman, a k a Maxwell Allen, is a volatile ex-thug who wears his Caped Crusader outfit to therapy.

The movie hits a down-and-out groove early on and rings endless variations on the same note: Celebrity is America’s true addiction, and here are its casualties. The empathetic tone draws you in, though, and some of the details are devastating: Superman’s ashtray, overflowing with stubbed-out Marlboros; a street cop explaining which side of the Walk of Fame is considered private property and which is public; a snapshot of Wonder Woman reaching into the driver’s-side window of a car while parking attendants ogle her Amazon posterior.

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO

Opens today in Manhattan.

Directed by Matt Ogens; director of photography, Charlie Gruet; produced by Jamie Patricof, Mr. Gruet and Mr. Ogens; released by Arts Alliance America. At the Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 East Third Street, at Avenue A, East Village. Running time: 92 minutes. This film is not rated.

November 2, 2007

AFI

Confessions of a Superhero ((DOCU))By PETER DEBRUGE

An Arts Alliance America/Red Envelope Entertainment release of a Hunting Lane Films, Smokeshow Films, Ogens production, in association with HKM, TradeMark Films. Produced by Jamie Patricof, Charlie Gruet, Matt Ogens. Co-producer, Mark Meyers. Directed by Matt Ogens. With: Christopher Lloyd Dennis, Joe McQueen, Jennifer Gehrt, Maximus "Batman" Allen, Leron Gubler, Johnny Grant, Stan Lee, Margot Kidder. For many an aspiring movie star, the celebrity footprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theater prove simply too big to fill, but that doesn't stop a particular breed of wannabe from dressing up in hopes of discovery on Hollywood Boulevard. With an uneasy mix of parody and pathos, director Matthew Ogens spotlights four such fame-seekers in his docu "Confessions of a Superhero," focusing (as the title might suggest) on those who hit the sidewalk as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Hulk. They make easy targets, but Ogens ventures beyond sideshow condescension, striking a tone that ought to entice specialty auds.

From Times Square's "Naked Cowboy" to Austin's cross-dressing Leslie Cochran, every city boasts some equivalent of the street-corner eccentrics who populate Ogens' film. The difference with "Confessions" is that although nearly every tourist to visit Hollywood has encountered these glorified panhandlers, the faces behind the costumes remain largely anonymous, even interchangeable.

Ogens attempts to humanize his subjects, often at their expense, by retracing their backstories and snooping about their living spaces (Christopher Lloyd Dennis' apartment is overrun with what he estimates to be a million dollars' worth of Superman memorabilia, and Hulk impersonator Joe McQueen revisits the back-alley corner where he spent many homeless nights).

Opening montage, which features such images as Superman brushing his teeth and Wonder Woman blow-drying her hair, effectively conveys the mundane side of a superhero's existence. These "characters," as they're known, subscribe to rules both written and unwritten: By law, they aren't permitted to solicit tips from tourists, and as self-appointed role models, they strive not to misbehave in public.

In telling their story, Ogens' fly-on-the-wall footage shows more respect than the local news media. But he takes a wrong turn early on, using grouchy local politicos

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November 2, 2007

to frame the tipping issue as the characters' principal conflict. Surely their personal lives are more interesting than such municipal policies -- if not, Ogens picked the wrong individuals to shadow.

Sure enough, their personalities take shape as the movie unfolds, accentuated through gorgeously lensed interviews and intimate moments. Maximus "Batman" Allen is a dead ringer for George Clooney, but possesses an almost sociopathic temper. Small-town prom queen Jennifer Gehrt, who plays Wonder Woman, illustrates the obstacles faced by countless Midwestern transplants before her: Something about the way her agent says the word "voluptuous" suggests the impossible standards to which the industry holds its starlets.

Some will look upon these characters with pity. Others will laugh. Ogens tries to play it both ways, underscoring the film with melancholy guitar strings while serving up thought-provoking yet thoroughly unflattering photographs (Batman suiting up in a public restroom, parking jockeys checking out Wonder Woman's star-spangled derriere).

Are they crazy? Maybe, but as opposed to the legions of Hollywood waiters who harbor delusions of stardom, at least this foursome are taking matters into their own hands, getting into character on a daily basis for the benefit of complete strangers. Such is the nature of their obsession, not with superheroes, but with the fame that remains just out of reach.

Camera (color, HD, 24p mini-DV-to-HD, Super 8-to-HD), Charlie Gruet; editors, Rick Lobo, Mick LeGrande, Jason Djang, Michael Victor; music, Greg Kuehn; sound, Benjamin Seaward; associate producers, Shawn Bennett, Jordan Ehrlich, Elizabeth McIntyre, Zev Suissa, Spencer Parker. Reviewed on DVD, Los Angeles, Oct. 30, 2007. (In AFI Los Angeles Film Festival -- Documentary Showcase.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 93 MIN.

(Variety continued)

November 2, 2007

EQUATION OF OUTSIDERSDocs on costume wearers highlight universal discomfortBy Eric Kohn

Confessions of a SuperheroDirected by Mathew Ogens

An outsider’s plight often involves the shield of fantasy. In Confessions of a Superhero, a lovely documentary opening this week at Pioneer, the sanctuary of pop culture obsession helps a handful of unemployed actors evade their pervasive lonesomeness. The movie, directed by Matthew Ogens as a hybrid of expressive interviews and fly-on-the-wall observations, gives context to a strange subset of men and women wandering around Hollywood Boulevard dressed as their favorite comic book characters. Their livelihood rests on charitable pedestrians willing to drop generous tips after posing with the masked performers for photographs. They’re self-made tourist traps with major identity issues.

The secret identity metaphor has never been more apt. Each character in Confessions has a detailed backstory that seems to explain their chosen street persona: Wonder Woman has relationship issues, Superman is a spacey klutz, the Hulk is a not-so-angry black man, and Batman is batshit insane. Since all of these people harbor dreams of stardom, they’re natural performers for the camera, but the details of their lives that they inadvertently reveal give the film its depth. The most intriguing of the bunch, Superman (whose real name is Christopher Denis), has a houseful of Man of Steel memorabilia and a background involving drug abuse. Many of the layers of his psychological disarray that lead him to wear tights and dream about invincibility seem readily apparent. Also, he looks a helluva lot like Christopher Reeves.    

Confessions doesn’t condescend or mock its subjects because they’re such natural entertainers that no audience pandering is necessary: Superman, for example, lectures Ghostrider on his smoking addiction, insisting the character would never indulge in the habit. Batman eerily shadows tourists if they refuse to hand him a tip. Each performer inadvertently synchs up with the mythology of their chosen disguise. Occasionally, this gimmick lags, as the filmmakers operate under the presumption that anything these people do will hold our interest. Actually, the major revelation is how ordinary they appear to be once the masks come off. A sense of tragedy arises from their unwillingness to shed their shells despite being verily aware of their own timidity: Even comic book guru Stan Lee tells the camera that he “wouldn’t want to look like some idiot in a costume.” But these costumed characters aren’t idiots, just scaredy cats; they’re fighting the cold sting of reality.

An ideal companion piece to Confessions happens to be opening across town this week at

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November 2, 2007

the IFC Center. Darkon, a startlingly insightful look at Baltimore natives involved in the excessive hobby of dressing up as fantasy characters of the Dungeons & Dragons variety and living out alternative lives on an imagined battlefield. The titular game is actually a brilliantly complicated social experiment that allows players to create their own characters and manipulate the fictional civilization during their regular meetings at local parks. Aping classic sword and sorcerer narratives, the teams have leaders adorned in battle armor delivering rousing speeches akin to the ones peppered throughout 300. They’re even less ironic in Darkon, as the players heartily throw themselves into this alternative reality so that none of it is fair game for mockery.

The same thematic core of Confessions is operative here: These people engage in fairy tale worship to escape the mundanity of their day-to-day routines. An overweight college student says he’s only comfortable with social interactions when in character, and one couple refuses to let their real life relationship unfold in the game world. Directors Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer play it straight with fantastic production values (the movie looks better than many blockbuster action films). Using crane shots, slo-mo and other devices, the filmmakers capture the make-believe fight sequences that form the centerpiece of the Darkon reality. But just when your impulse is to laugh at the absurd picture, the actual story grows dark. Two founders of the Darkon assembly begin a deeply contextualized feud about the implementation of power, and it quickly becomes clear that their tension exists beyond the game. Unable to work things out without slipping into character, they resolve their issues in an imagined duel. Their incessant immersion in the affair gives the drama an incredible immediacy.

Hero worship and swordplay: Distinct patterns of psychological fragility emerge in both eccentric activities. Everyone has fantasies, but these movies teach us that the boundary between escapism and authenticity is hardly objective. For further evidence, see a third documentary opening this week: Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. What is punk rock if not a fantasy with ongoing resonance?

November 2, 2007

Super on the Inside, TooMovies

By S. JAMES SNYDEROctober 31, 2007

There's an unmistakable parallel between artist and subject in "Confessions of a Superhero," a heartbreaking new documentary that will make its New York debut Friday night at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater. In a not-so-subtle stroke of irony, the director, Matthew Ogens, set out to record a quirky sort of freak show, but wound up making a film about men and women — dressed as superheroes, walking the streets for money — with dreams not all that different from his own.

The tale starts on Hollywood Boulevard — that short strip of asphalt where a celebrity's fame is commemorated in concrete and gold, where people with stars in their eyes come to gaze at the stars below their feet along the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Of course, to those who love it the most, Hollywood Boulevard is also commonly known as the boulevard of broken dreams. It's this interplay, between Hollywood as the dreamland of possibilities and Hollywood as the gutter of despair, that stands at the center of "Confessions of a Superhero."

Enter Mr. Ogens, who has long chased his filmmaking dream through TV documentaries for such networks as ESPN and VH1, as well as his own short films. But it was his day job on a commercial shoot that first brought him to Hollywood Boulevard some years ago, and it was during that shoot that he began to notice the parade of superheroes wandering the Walk of Fame. As tourists gawked and locals dreamed, such familiar icons as Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and Wonder Woman wandered up and down the street, offering photos in exchange for "tips."

"We were shooting this documentary, and we started to notice all these guys in costumes, and we were just drawn to it," Mr. Ogens said. "We thought, 'These guys are so quirky, this is just a train-wreck.' And so we thought of doing a film as a profile of these odd characters. We were assuming that one was a drug addict, another a drunk … it was actually supposed to be a comedy."

But the more he spoke with the superhero clan, the less pathetic they seemed.

"The sad thing was that we were judging the book by the character, and the more we started talking to Superman, the more we started to see ourselves in these characters," Mr.

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November 2, 2007

Ogens said. "Over the span of a week, I started taking some still photographs, and within two weeks we were shooting the movie. It just hooked us."

As enthusiastic festival audiences have already learned, Mr. Ogens unearthed a fascinating cornucopia of aspiring artists who were climbing into their rubber and spandex every day in large part to pay the bills, but also to exercise their acting chops and boost their egos.

Usually there are few boosts to be found. In one scene, we learn that that Wonder Woman is a small-town girl who moved across the country in hopes of being an actress. When she isn't strutting her stuff along the boulevard, she's meeting with her agent, an acting coach, and attending auditions. We learn that Superman is an obsessed Superman collector and Christopher Reeve fan. He's collected tens of thousands of dollars worth of memorabilia and, thanks to his appearances at conventions and on late-night Los Angeles talk shows, is a rising celebrity in his own right.

Mr. Ogens is there on the day when the man who plays the Incredible Hulk gets the callback from an audition; he's been cast in the new Justin Lin film, "Finish the Game," which opened at IFC Center earlier this month.

"These aren't just people in costumes," the director said. "They're trying to be actors and make it in the entertainment industry. And when you think about why we were there, shooting commercials, trying to make some money to pay our dues, we were doing much the same thing. So the movie became about peeling the onion, that you start thinking these are weirdos, but the deeper you go, the more you realize they are anything but."

In a similar twist of fate, while Mr. Ogens's commercial shoot helped him to find the topic he would use to make his first feature-length film, this unlikely documentary has given some of the hopeful superheroes the attention they have long been seeking.

"I wasn't sure, at first, what I thought about it at all, to have my life dissected," said Christopher Dennis, who impersonates Superman almost daily along the Walk of Fame, and who stands as the central character of the documentary. "But at the very first screening, just as the film started playing, people started laughing and cheering and crying, and I thought to myself, 'Well, we don't have too much to worry about, if we're hitting all these emotions.'"

Mr. Ogens described witnessing festival audiences rushing to greet this stoic impersonator after screenings. But he also saw the fear with which Mr. Dennis shed his costume. "We'd be going to a festival party, and we'd say, 'You don't need to wear your outfit,' and it was almost like he wanted to wear the outfit because without it, people wouldn't recognize him."

But Mr. Dennis says this isn't entirely a bad thing. When he appears as Superman along the boulevard, he is admired all day long. In "Confessions," we see men and women of every age fawn over him, running up for photos and gushing, "Superman, you're my hero." Mr. Dennis also takes obvious pride in the heroic efforts he often makes in the service of his fans — helping lost tourists, foiling shoplifters, and nabbing purse-snatchers.

Mr. Dennis will freely admit that his need to be "in character" may be unhealthy. But it's just the kind of unhealthy obsession, he says, that built this town in the first place.

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November 2, 2007

"I did some research on Hollywood, and did you know that way back in the day, when Hollywood was getting started, actors and actresses would put on crazy outfits and strut their stuff along the boulevard, in hopes of getting a director or producer to see them and say, 'Hey, you have what I'm looking for'? The way I look at it, I'm just carrying on the tradition of Hollywood."

ssnyder@nysun.com

November 2, 2007

CRITICS' PICKSRun don’t walk to these six AFI Fest mustsBy L.A. Weekly Film CriticsWednesday, October 31, 2007 - 4:00 pm

CONFESSIONS OF A SUPERHERO (USA) A more beautiful documentary you’re unlikely to find — director Matthew Ogens has composed every scene as though it could be freeze-framed and hung on a wall. But beneath its shimmering beauty is the kind of ugly truth about Hollywood Boulevard panhandlers — the struggling actors and daydream believers and other assorted losers and lifers — who dress up in shabby blockbuster attire, hoping to collect tourists’ spare change in exchange for a gag Polaroid. Ogens focuses on a low-rent Justice League: Superman fetishist Chris Dennis (who says his mom is actress Sandy—dubious), Batman rage-aholic Max Allen, small-town prom queen turned Wonder Woman Jennifer Gehrt, and a homeless Hulk named Joe McQueen. Ogens, an ad man, treats his subjects with considerable kindness and care, so what could have been a condescending descent into bottom feeding turns into a rather loving, often heartbreaking portrait of decent people just trying to scrape by. Dennis emerges as the star of the movie as he battles for truth, justice, and the American way on his own little piece of real estate, where evildoers smoking cigarettes in Wolverine costumes threaten the enterprise. By the time he meets up with Margot Kidder at a costume contest, you’ll believe the man can fly. (Fri., Nov. 2, 9:45 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 4, 3:30 p.m.) (Robert Wilonsky)

November 2, 2007

Arts & Entertainment

BEYOND THE MULTIPLEXBy Andrew O’Heir

Caped crusaders on the couch in "Confessions of a Superhero

I vastly enjoyed Matt Ogens' documentary "Confessions of a Superhero" when I caught it last spring at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Texas, but it seemed like one of those winning little festival movies that was just a bit too peculiar for mainstream release. I'm grateful to say that I was wrong, and Ogens' intimate portrait of four would-be actors who eke out a living by donning superhero costumes and posing for tourist photographs on Hollywood Boulevard may soon be playing near you.

As Ogens' Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Incredible Hulk readily admit, they're just panhandlers with funny clothes who make their money by staying, barely, on the right side of the loitering and harassment laws. Batman, in fact, seems like a borderline personality with a scary past and a rage problem, despite his much-commented-upon resemblance to George Clooney. Wonder Woman is a one-time homecoming queen from Tennessee, and the Hulk is an African-American "country boy" from North Carolina who spent four years homeless -- and actually gets a pretty big acting break that may get him out of that green suit.

But the heart of the film is Christopher Dennis, the incredibly strange dude who's spent many years as the boulevard's Man of Steel. Dennis doesn't just play Superman, he is monumentally obsessed with Superman and owns one of the world's premier collections of Superman tchotchkes. By his own account, he's a former meth addict and the illegitimate son of one-time movie star Sandy Dennis (although her other relatives don't believe that), and Superman has given him a new lease on life. If you think he's odd, though, wait till you meet his girlfriend! Lest you fear a freak show, Ogens is never patronizing or condescending. In its own inimitably strange way, "Confessions of a Superhero" is an inspirational tale. (Opens Nov. 2 at the Pioneer Theater in New York and the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas,

November 2, 2007

Nov. 16 in Los Angeles and Nov. 21 in Denver. DVD release will follow in January.)

CALENDAR: FILM LISTINGS

Confessions of a SuperheroYear Released: 2007Directed By: Matt Ogens(R, 92 min.)

What does Superman do when he's not posing for snapshots with Hollywood Boulevard tourists in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre? Turns out he smokes like a chimney, guzzles milk by the gallon, and hustles to make ends meet in what's got to be one of the toughest gigs in Los Angeles. Kal-El he's not – the "he" I'm referring to is Christopher Lloyd Dennis (son of Oscar-winning Sandy Dennis), one of four street actors profiled in Ogens' fine, bittersweet, and hopelessly ingratiating documentary. It's also a surrealistic tour de farce: Where else are you going to catch a glimpse of Superman and Ghost Rider strolling down the street while debating the pros and cons of lighting up on the job. (Ghost Rider: "I can smoke. I'm on fire!") Dennis' slim build makes for an oddly scrawny Man of Steel, but Maxwell Allen (Batman), a dead ringer for George Clooney after a long night, is convincing enough despite – or possibly because of – his occasional flashes of temper. Jennifer Gehrt's Wonder Woman explains the fame-fueled, relentlessly optimistic motivation behind almost all of the performers here when she casually remarks, "Sure, a doctor saves lives, but is he remembered?" Hollywood has always fed on the fear of failure, of personal or professional oblivion, at least as much as the dream of stardom and the possibility of a cinematic seat among the elect, the chosen, the immortals. And it's here, in this strange purgatory between the daily grind of working solely for tips from (often) skinflint tourists while somehow managing the truly superhuman feat of keeping relatively sane in the midst of all this unreality, that Confessions of a Superhero really soars. Who knew the Hulk's alter ego (Joe McQueen, a diminutive black man inside that beefy DayGlo-green getup) had spent years homeless? Certainly the tourists never stop to ask. Often the parallels between these never-say-die, perpetually struggling actors and the characters they inhabit are almost too close for comfort, as when "Maximus Batman" Allen's wife mentions his short fuse and roughshod past. You wonder just how difficult it must be, at the end of the day, to hang up the mask and be if not Bruce Wayne then at least flesh and blood, no more impervious to the life's two-bit cruelties than Harvey Pekar. SXSW Film Presents

November 2, 2007

Marc Savlov [2007-11-02]

Confessions of a Superhero | Directed by Matthew Ogens

Starring: Maxwell AllenRuntime: 1:32 (92 mins)

It’s Halloween all year round in Matt Ogen’s debut documentary. The proletariat on Hollywood Boulevard work as superhero characters, in this case Superman, The Hulk and Wonder Woman, to make a living and hopefully find fame. Ogen brings surprising depth to the people behind the spandex and polyester, in many ways presenting a modern-day exposé of the American Dream.

Dana Keith

November 2, 2007

~ LATEST REVIEWS ~

Confessions of a Superhero

Matthew Ogens’s funny and wistful documentary explores the Hollywood dream factory by watching four hopefuls following an unusual guide map to fame: They loiter at Grauman’s in superhero costumes and shake down tourists for tips. Their unofficial king is Christopher Dennis, a.k.a. Superman, a decade-plus veteran of the Walk of Fame grind, who claims that his mother – Tony- and Oscar-winner Sandy Dennis – ordered him to act, from her death bed. And the gawky Dennis – an ex-addict living in an apartment crammed with Man of Steel souvenirs – does resemble a weathered Clark Kent, though the long neck sprouting from his caped shoulders also gives him the look of an alert turtle.

Ogens doesn’t miss a chance to deflate these street performers’ ambitions, but his well-shot documentary is affectionate, and rich with lovely moments of humane kitsch: Wonder Woman (Jennifer Gehrt) auditions for commercials; Batman (Maxwell Allen) confesses his anger issues to a therapist; and the Incredible Hulk (Joseph McQueen) visits the alley where he slept homeless for four years. A recurring image of Dennis, whom even the other superheroes consider obsessive, grooming himself for another afternoon on Hollywood Boulevard by hair-spraying a curl in his forelock reminds you that these ridiculous superstar aspirants, like the hundreds of thousands of fame-seekers who continue to come west, are just ordinary mortals putting their tights on one leg at a time as they dream of better tomorrows. (Amy Nicholson) (Laemmle’s Music Hall 3)

November 2, 2007

'Confessions of a Superhero'November 16, 2007

When Superman's work is done, he retires to a cramped apartment studded with Man of Steel memorabilia. When the Hulk reverts to human form, he's a wiry black man who was once homeless. Batman sees a therapist over his anger issues. These are the Hollywood Boulevard roamers for whom a costume, a smile and tourist tips keep their acting dreams alive, and Matt Ogens' thoughtful documentary, "Confessions of a Superhero," chronicles their fringe existence with an accumulation of detail, fractured hope and simple humanity that is hard to resist.

We get lots of gently quirky humor from their peccadilloes -- Christopher "Superman" Dennis' serious nature, Maxwell "Batman" Allen's constant reminders that he's a George Clooney look-alike -- and develop natural sympathy for their professional and personal struggles. (Jennifer Gehrt, a curvy Tennessee transplant who doubles as Wonder Woman, has unforced charm and a winning smile that the camera adores.)

"The characters," as they're known to the Walk of Fame businesses and the local cops, cannot aggressively solicit and must let pedestrians approach them. And it's all in the hopes of one day being famous enough to consider such attention a problem.

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"Confessions of a Superhero." MPAA rating: R for some language. Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes. At Laemmle's Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd. (310) 274-6869.