Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon (2014)

Excellent, a Must See

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Outstanding documentary. The story of Shep Gordon, a man who, while a brilliant agent in the entertainment industry, is relatively unknown to most people, despite exerting incredible influence in the music and movie industries. Moreover, his personality goes against the image we have of agents, in that he is not just about the money but shows genuine compassion and friendship.The amount of stars in his sphere of influence, and as friends, is amazing.Incredibly well made by Mike Myers, in his directorial debut. He painstaking compiled stills and footage of Gordon for the movie. Some scenes are dramatized but these are generally very humorously done, giving the movie an (appropriate) light-hearted tone.Not just a story of a man, pretty much a "how to" manual on publicity. He was a genius at marketing.Surely one of the best documentaries ever made.

The life and career of the legendary Hollywood insider, Shep Gordon.I had never heard of Shep Gordon before this documentary showed up on Netflix. Now I know he was instrumental in the rise of Alice Cooper and his legend, he helped create the "celebrity chef" and he was involved in the Cameron Crowe plane crash story fictionalized in "Almost Famous".We learn about the Hollywood Vampires, and the unlikely drinking duo of John Lennon and Alice Cooper. I say unlikely not just because how different they are musically, but the political aspects could have been mind-blowing (though Cooper insists he was apolitical at the time).We learn of the Anne Murray and Alice Cooper connection, which is even stranger than Lennon. Heck, in many ways this is far more a story of Alice Cooper than it is of Shep Gordon. If a Cooper documentary does not exist yet, expect one to come around soon thanks to his role in this.Is the story too positive? That seems to be the biggest complaint, that the film comes off as more of a Mike Myers love letter than a true documentary. Surely someone at some point must have had something negative to say? Maybe, maybe not. At the very least, Myers should be applauded just for getting this out there and letting the world know Gordon exists. Clearly Hollywood knows, but does anyone else?

If you pay an obsessive amount of attention to film, as I do, you may have noticed the absence of comedian Mike Myers in films in the last few years. For the last couple years, Myers has been invested in making his directorial debut, a documentary by the name of Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, chronicling the life of Shep Gordon, a renowned talent manager who managed everyone from Myers himself to stars like Alice Cooper, Teddy Pendergrass, and Jimi Hendrix. In just eighty-five minutes, Myers, and Gordon, who narrates practically the entire documentary, gives us an in-depth look at the life of a person who likely enters our mind a total, abstract figure and emerges as someone we probably wouldn't mind having drinks with at any given time.In the beginning, Gordon, who looks like a cross between Seinfeld co-writer Larry David and former Canadian Football League coach Marc Trestman, talks about his experiences as a sociology major at the University of New York, Buffalo, which lead him to venturing out to the west coast to become a probation officer. After a traumatizing experience at his first day on the job, Gordon went back to his hotel room, dropped acid, and proceeded to relax and unwind before believing he heard the screams and cries of a woman being raped. When he ran outside to "rescue" said woman, he was punched in the face by none other than Janis Joplin, who was doing drugs with Jimi Hendrix. It didn't take long for Gordon to become their manager, predominately based on the qualifications that Gordon was indeed high and knew the drug world all too well.Gordon eventually got connected with Alice Cooper, functioning as his manager by staging outrageous shows that would make headlines and selling drugs in the audience to keep the crowd coming back for more in both the performance and the social aspect of the show. Gordon talks about how he realized early on that kids loved anything their parents detested, so he tried to get Cooper arrested on stage one night by having him perform naked in saran wrap, to which Gordon would respond by calling the police pretending to be an angered parent. By the time the police had arrived at the venue Cooper was performing at, the saran wrap had fogged up from the heat of the massive crowd and the police questioned why they were even called.Gordon is filled with those kinds of wild and crazy stories, and Supermensch is a time when those stories are released and a character is revealed. One of the stories he shares is how he and Cooper sort of pioneered audience participation and liveliness within crowds at rock concerts, going as far as throwing a live chicken in the audience, which would later come back to Cooper a mangled and bloodied mess, or how feathered pillows were scattered throughout the concertgoers. In addition,Gordon talks about how him and Cooper, who have remained lifelong friends since they were first acquainted with one another, recorded Cooper's song "I'm Eighteen" in Canada because Cooper's own Straight Records label didn't want to be affiliated with the song. This propelled "I'm Eighteen" to be a huge hit in Canada and its success eventually bled into the United States, becoming one of Cooper's most recognized songs.The ideology behind Gordon's business practices revolves around three kickers. One is his basic philosophy, which is "get the money, remember to get the money, and never forget to always remember to get the money," in reference to receiving the promised paycut for the plethora of shows he scheduled for his clients. The second is conducting what he refers to as "compassionate business," where nobody wins and nobody loses but everyone wins and everything works out in the end. Finally, Gordon believes in a system that uses "coupons," or asking favors and repaying them through incalculable kindness, such loaning out his home to people he has known for years, or simply chipping in financially to fund someone's lifestyle at this given time. For somebody who has partied enough and undoubtedly seen every racy, cut-throat side of business there is, the fact that Gordon remains so tender and human is astonishing.Finally, Myers doesn't neglect what the future held for Gordon, as he ventured into culinary arts after meeting French chef Roger Vergé. Gordon states how he enjoyed the freedom and liberation brought forth by the field of culinary arts because once you finished a meal, that was all that needed to be done, whereas managing talent and numerous different acts required constant contemplation of how to approach the next rodeo in a way that would mirror or best the success of the previous venture. In addition, Gordon's tireless work ethic has deprived him of the one thing we see he has needed most in his life - a wife and kids. Watching Gordon in his later years, we see a man not concerned with the party and debauchery lifestyle as he once was, but one looking to settle down and produce somebody who can go on to optimistically live the same kind of caring and open-minded life his father has done throughout his life.Supermensch is a wonderful documentary, thoroughly human and uncommonly entertaining, with numerous celebrities like Tom Arnold and Michael Douglas weighing on what Gordon has done for them. At a simple, eighty-five minutes, Myers chronicles just about all we need to know about Gordon to come to the consensus that this is a man responsible for a lot more than what we have credited him for, and a soul just as charismatic as the talent he manages.Directed by: Mike Myers.

You know that famous line from, Almost Famous, "I am a golden god!"? That quote pretty much sums up the life and times of Shep Gordon, a would be prison guard turned drug dealer turned one of the most famous managers to some of the biggest musicians of their day. You know that scene from Almost Famous where the plane is going down, and the bandmates blurt out confessions? Shep Gordon was on that plane and so was Cameron Crowe, when he put that true outrageous moment into the movie. Shep Gordon's life is one very outrageous movie and now Mike Myers, in his directorial debut, turns it into a good time love letter and at times, moving documentary movie.More than outrageous, Shep is a legend in his excess of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Not one to miss an opportunity with the ladies, he would wear a t-shirt on tour that said, "No head, no backstage pass". But the magic of this film, something that Myers didn't craft on accident, is that the biggest legend of Shep's excess was the capacity of his heart. A kind and very generous man, Shep was every famous person's best friend because, unlike 99% of the music managers with their slimy reputation, he had the biggest heart in the room. After being ostrasized by the fellow prison guards because of his big unkempt hairstyle, Shep found himself holed up in a Hollywood hotel. That hotel turned out to be the infamous Landmark Motor Hotel selling drugs to none other than Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix. When Shep knew the heat would catch up to him sooner than later, he stepped away from dealing and got the idea from Hendrix to start managing music. "You're a Jew aren't you? You should manage music", and that's how it all started. Shep's first client was Alice Cooper, and they've been inseparable since. Even many, many, years and famous clients later, when Shep decided to retire he didn't retire from his best friend Cooper.It was with Cooper that Shep improvised press out of thin air turning Cooper into a star. Shep was a very adaptable manager who had a diversity of clients that spanned the hard rock stylings of Cooper, to the R&B Teddy Pendergrass, to the Canadian country good girl Anne Murray. He reached beyond music with many film producing credits, and when he became infatuated with the culinary arts, he represented the greatest chef's in the world, inventing the celebrity chef (Emeril Legasse among many others). The insight into each of these clients is truly wild and usually ended up with a happy ending; Pendergrass ending up a mixed bag tale.And while we could listen to Shep's wild tales and conquests forever, Myer's gets us deep access into his personal life, never letting us forget that this is a good human being who really made a difference in so many lives. His want for offspring keeps surfacing throughout. The mix of his earlier promiscuous life with his self sacrificial motivation to bring all of his clients everything they could ever want has left him without an heir to the Gordon empire. Shep gets closest to being a dad when tragedy strikes as an old girlfriend's grandchildren lose their mother and he comes to the rescue not only wildly financially but also as a loving father figure. That selfless deed is where the true legend of Shep Gordon lies, a supermensch, aka a superman."this" selfless deed is where the true legend of Shep Gordon lies, a supermensch, aka a superman.Matthew 7:12