Sometimes we pick a movie based on when we want to go to bed. I Like Killing Flies is only 80 minutes (and, we are still Documentary Crazy) so it won out the other night on a Netflix Instant trawl.
It's a movie about the idiosyncratic owner of a tiny restaurant in Greenwich Village, Kenny Shopsin, and his family-run restaurant Shopsin's. The restaurant has an extensive menu, like over 900 items extensive, and a bunch of rules. Like, no parties of five. Kenny swears a lot, and philosophizes about restaurants and cooking and life. Halfway through the movie, the restaurant moves to a different space, bigger, two whole blocks away, and we follow the travails of that move, both physical and psychic.
There's a danger in these sorts of profiles of strong characters like Kenny Shopsin for it to either explain away all their idiosyncrasies, or for it to end up as just a big "look at the freak". But I think the film lets Kenny make enough sense that you see where he's coming from, but you still think he's pretty crazy.
FuzzyCo grade: A
