Poor man’s Sleepwalk With Me. Harmontown and Sleepwalk With Me felt like very similar movies. Both look at someone in the middle of traumatic period in their lives, but I didn’t find either that interesting, although I do want to learn more about the characters studied.

★★☆☆☆

I have mixed feelings about documentaries. In order to really enjoy a documentary, I need a few things to really work for me. First, the documentary could have an very suspenseful and exciting narrative. Great examples include The Jinx or most of the 30 for 30 collection (I especially recommend Slaying the Badger, Youngstown Boys, Winning Time, and The U). Second, the documentary could show insight into a really fascinating person who is involved in a really fascinating time. Films of this category include We Live in Public and Man on Wire. Lastly, the film could immerse me into a fascinating world that I know nothing about. Examples of this would be something like Darkon or Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Josh is typically a good judge of documentaries. In fact, 3 of the documentaries listed above were recommended by him.

Sadly, a documentary may start with an interesting premise, but will be unable to complete the story. Some examples I didn’t enjoy include Something’s Wrong with Aunt Diane and The Imposter. Both of these started in really interesting places but weren’t able to satisfactorily make conclusions or answer the questions they started with. Other times, the subject matter of a documentary just isn’t that interesting. Documentaries like Somm and, unfortunately, Harmontown both fall into this last category. Other people might find the documentary interesting, but it just couldn’t seem to hold my attention.

Harmontown follows Dan Harmon, a writer and performer probably best known for creating the cult TV show Community and as well as co-creating the show Rick & Morty. The documentary follows Dan touring his podcast of the same name in January of 2013. When we meet Dan, he’s been fired from Community and has decided to take his podcast on the road. We also get occasional flashbacks into Dan’s history. One notable moment shows an interview with Sarah Silverman, who says that she fired Dan despite him being the best writer on the show because he was so hard to work with. Throughout the tour Dan is at times both hilarious and painfully self-destructive. He scoffs at deadlines, bosses, and digs out any and all personal baggage for a laugh. In one particularly painful to watch scene, Dan and his then girlfriend talk on stage about a fight they had the previous night. Dan cracks jokes while his girlfriend seems close to tears describing how poorly Dan treated her. They divorced a few months ago.

The documentary also shines a spotlight on the other members of the podcast, but doesn’t give them quite as much airtime as Dan. The two other main members are Jeff Davis and Spencer Crittenden. I would watch an entire documentary on Spencer. Spencer is the dungeon master for the D&D segment on the podcast. He was an audience member who wanted to play D&D with Dan Harmon, went to a Harmontown podcast recording, and ended up a member of the main cast. He is in his early twenties, extremely shy, and lives with his parents. Throughout the documentary, occasional cuts to Spencer show him beginning to feel comfortable in his own skin. In one particularly touching scene, Spencer signs a D20 for a fan who is so excited that you would think he just met Michael Jordan.

Overall, I didn’t really get much to take away from Harmontown. He is a very intelligent, very funny guy that my wife thinks could benefit from some serious therapy. I think he’s had a positive effect on his fans, and I’ve enjoyed the episodes of Community that I’ve seen. My major positive from the movie is similar to Sleepwalk With Me: I’m now subscribed to the Harmontown podcast.

Harmontown is available to stream on Netflix

Next week Josh will be watching The French Connection. This is a film classic, featuring Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. It also features one of the best car chases ever put on film. AND IT’S ON NETFLIX!