Winnebago Man (2010)

One of the best films i have seen

Let's be realistic.

good back-story, and good acting

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

As viral videos go, The Winnebago Man is one of my very favorites (I know it's been a meme for ages, but just I came upon it recently). And to find out that someone actually made a documentary about Jack Rebney certainly piqued my curiosity. Sadly, it's not great.The movie's fantastic for the first 30 minutes or so. Its focus is on giving context (what the video is, how it came about, why we love it), and this is where it's really entertaining. Most of the good stuff is found in the interviews with the production crew, and this is where I laughed and enjoyed myself the most.But the director crafts a narrative out of tracking down the reclusive YouTube star and trying to bring him out of retirement for more Internet glory. This was my problem with the movie; it got away from what made that original video fun and tried to exploit the guy's unwanted celebrity for new fame. It gets uncomfortable, and I really wish the director would've kept himself out of the movie. It's very forced.There's a sizable part of me that regrets having seen this. As one of the interviewees in the movie said, to dig deeper into the legend is to ruin the fun of it. And in this case, I wholeheartedly agree. Rebney was far more entertaining when he was railing against flies and had trouble saying "accoutrements". I still very much love the ill-fated Winnebago sales video, but this movie I can do without.5/10

I can't say that I've ever witnessed such a heartwaking and true cinematic representation of a human being in my life. Jack Rebney is shown from every possible angle as a complex, contradictory, and intensely intelligent man. The fact that he works so hard to subvert the form in which he is being captured is what makes this work so well. The documentarian aspects are good enough. But it's the subject on display that brings it together. Rebney isn't just a source of amusement, he's an example of true, real, complete humanity. Someone how achieved some measure of peace and happiness in life through self-acceptance and understanding. The anger is a side issue.This is a great film.

Ben Steinbauer's documentary about Jack Rebney is an interesting and entertaining piece of filmmaking. I realize there is a huge sub-culture of "YouTube junkies" mind-boggling in diversity and size. Because I do not regularly peruse YouTube videos I was unaware of one of the most iconic characters ever to achieve a kind of mass popularity in cyberspace: "Jack Rebney, The Angriest Man In The World". It is definitely a cultural phenomenon whereby a man who would otherwise be as unknown as any other has become a world-wide star. His dialog, and I'm not just talking about his profanity, has transcended the internet ending up even in Hollywood movies. The industrial video he made for Winnebago probably helped shift some units by helping dealers sell their product...maybe not? But, the outtakes, which originally only went to a few executives at Winnebago and the crew, have transcended time place and product & will "live in infamy" on the internet and within pop-culture.How could one man's frustration shooting an "infomercial" come to this? Who is the man, the so-called "Angriest Man in The World"? What became of him after the video and, more saliently, is he still alive? These are some of the questions that Ben Steinbauer was interested in and he had to expend some effort, indeed, because Jack Rebney had long ago retreated and become a true hermit. Finally when Steinbauer found Jack, Jack was not often not honest, but still capable of great bursts of anger-many times still laced with language more suitable to jail and wartime. Jack is a juxtaposition who finds his notoriety irritating and intoxicating. He seems miffed that he is a kind of cultural icon due to the internet, more specifically due to film he thought shouldn't have ever existed in the first place. Perhaps in his seclusion he has found peace, but you get the feeling that under the surface he's mad as hell still with a lot of it centering around events culminating with the George W. Bush presidency. At one point I think Jack believes Ben's movie will to allow him to profess his manifesto regarding politics (and the general decline of the United States) which, it seems evident, is where Jack thinks his importance to his audience should lie. Ben tries to make it clear he seeking something more like how Jack got to the point he was as when he made the Winnebago video, that is what his fans are more interested in. This serves to irritate Jack and all grinds to a halt for quite some time. Ben does an end-around and finds a way to get back to Jack though and because of that we do end up getting this documentary. As mentioned earlier, the film Winnebago Man is entertaining. We get a slice of Jack Rebney, though not a whole picture of who this man really is. The holes are unavoidable as Jack Rebney has covered his tracks, purposely fell away from the day-to-day trappings of civilization. Who Jack is, perhaps, is truly only known to Jack himself and he is playing his cards close.In the end "Winnebago Man" fans are not terribly interested in Jack's life-story and/or his deeper views. The whole phenomenon rests on actually seeing a man voice "over-the-top" frustration so frequently and with, seemingly, bottomless profanity. Ben Steinbauer succeeds admirably by, first, finding the man behind the expletives who can still get just as frustrated and angry. This is what Jack's fans love him for...he's like us, but he has no need to fit in at all anymore. To coin Jack: "You believe any of that $#!+"?

Just came back from an advance screening by the Cinefamily in Los Angeles. Don't take it lightly when I state this is one of the best documentaries in recent years. It's the portrait of a man known to many simply as "The Angriest Man in the World," and it's a story of redemption, humanity, and oddly enough, an examination of comedy - what we're laughing at and how it affects those that become the object of our amusement.It's best to simply know the premise and little else going in. Jack Rebney was the star of a viral video titled "Winnebago Man" before there even were such things. His profane tirades were passed around from VHS to VHS for years and are now readily available on YouTube. Documentary filmmaker Ben Steinbauer took it upon himself to find Ben, who was essentially living off the grid, and find him he does. What unfolds is at first funny and fascinating and eventually profound. It's easy to dismiss those in the videos you email back and forth each day, but "Winnebago Man" shows that there might be a compelling story there, and it might not be what you think.Over the course of the film, Jack more than redeems himself, and his journey becomes our own. This isn't a film where we're made to feel bad about our actions or even feel bad for Jack. It merely asks us to think about the things we do and what they mean to those around us. And if something that we disregard as trivial becomes much more to others, was it ever so trivial to begin with? Should we embrace that? This is just one layer in a movie that is alternately hysterical, sad, and ultimately hopeful. Above all it is humane. I'm not sure who's distributing it or when, but I can't imagine someone walking away from the movie without a smile on their face.That is, of course, unless you're easily offended by profanity.Highly recommended.