Home > Comedy >

Pitch

AD:This title is currently not available on Prime Video
Free Trial
View All Sources

Pitch (1997)

September. 04,1997
|
6.5
| Comedy Documentary
AD:This title is currently not available on Prime Video
Free Trial
View All Sources

A Canadian documentary featuring two young filmmakers attending the Toronto Film Festival to pitch a film concept to various celebrities. Their film idea, titled "The Don", concerns a Mafia don who goes for a hernia operation but gets a sex change instead. During the 1996 Toronto Fest, they approach Roger Ebert, Norman Jewison (at a packed press conference), Eric Stoltz (leaving a limo), Al Pacino, and others without much success. On a roll, they leave Toronto for Hollywood, getting advice from Arthur Hiller and Neil Simon and finding an agent who expresses interest in their pitch.

...

Watch Trailer

Free Trial Channels

AD
Show More

Cast

Reviews

TrueHello
1997/09/04

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

More
Teddie Blake
1997/09/05

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

More
Payno
1997/09/06

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

More
Catherina
1997/09/07

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

More
dontspamme-11
1997/09/08

Hotz and Rice obviously have enough friends who are willing to come to IMDb to regale the quality of their earlier work. But if you are just an average film viewer like me, chances are you decided to view this film after stumbling upon it, because you thought it might be promising after having seen at least a few episodes of "Kenny and Spenny"--and you would likely be disappointed by this film.Hotz and Rice have written a script and are attempting to "pitch" the script to a string of Hollywood producers, agents, actors, and scouts to help make it into a movie. The first part of this documentary demonstrates the difficulty they encounter in even finding an audience to pitch the script. The second part shows the difficulty they encounter in convincing the aforementioned "industry types" at film festivals to accept their script (and thus enable them to "break" into the industry). Based on their descriptions of the script, it promises to be a really bad film, so a series of rejections coupled by increasingly desperate pitching methods make up the bulk of the documentary. At this point, you might say: "well, these people are not giving you an opportunity because, quite frankly, your script sucks." If you say this, you would right, except for the fact that countless bad scripts are turned into screenplays for over-budgeted Hollywood trash every year, so a bad script is hardly the reason why someone cannot get their "big break" as a screen-writer or producer.A superficial viewing would suggest that the point of the film is to educate and highlight an aspect of the film industry with respect to its treatment of new writing talents. But a few of the notables who appear in this film, like Roger Ebert, are more attentive to the subtle purpose of the film, which is that the actual "pitch" is not the script, but the documentary itself. Here we see some of the elements in the Hotz and Rice collaboration that made "Kenny and Spenny" such a hit: the contrast between their personalities, the constant jabs between them, and the drama/antics that unfold as a result. Except here, they have not yet realized how entertaining it would be if they were to take these elements to their extremes.This film is thus, in many ways, a failure. The antagonistic friendship between Hotz and Rice is subtle and contained, and none of their antics are particularly creative or funny. Moreover, it is the subject matter, not their relationship, that is the focus of the film. It attempts to highlight something so obvious, with a straight-forward documentary style that is far too serious to be taken seriously. On the other hand, Hotz and Rice have clearly learned from it and polished some of the elements of this film into the cornerstone of their successful television series.So unless you care about the "evolution" of the ideas that made "Kenny and Spenny", it is unlikely you will find this film particularly entertaining.

More
jjjj-35
1997/09/09

I really wanted to like this movie. I absolutely love kenny hotz, and spenny rice has a charming side to him. Not that I like spenny at all. Spenny ruins this movie. He should of let kenny and his hot girlfriend pitch the movie.Anyways, it's pretty boring aside from a scene with Roger Ebert in it. There really isn't too many celebrities in this movie, and most don't seem to say more than one line. Overall this movie was disappointing. I would only suggest watching it if you got it with the season 1 DVD of kenny vs spenny (it comes for free on the 3rd disc). Regardless of this production, I am still very excited to check out The Papel Chase.

More
thegoddess63
1997/09/10

This is the worst documentary to come out of Canada ever!!!! I'm glad to see the guys haven't made another movie. All they want to do is get a movie made and it doesn't have to be the one they wrote. They keep changing the script to suite the person they're pitching. I could not get out of the theatre fast enough when I saw it at that year's Toronto Film Festival. Please never see this film.

More
Kenny Hotz
1997/09/11

Credited by Variety to be one of the greatest documentaries to ever come out of Canada. Al Pacino, Roger Ebert, Neil Simon, Matt Dillon as well as a constant slew of celebs make this film a Canadian classic. The film is really best described as "Roger & Me" meets "The Player". Watch as Kenny Hotz and Spenny PITCH their script to the big boys of Hollywood. Called the only American film to ever come out of Canada, This film opened the Toronto Film Festival in 1997, Winner of the 'Best Indie Film Award Toronto'. Europe premier was at the prestigious HOF film fest in Germany. U.S.A. premier U.S. Comedy Festival Aspen 1999. More information available at www.kennyhotz.com

More