The Plight of the Angelenos

By Pete Bauer • Nov 6th, 2006 • Category: News

The Plight of the Angelenos is a mockumentary about the struggles of native residents of Los Angeles and what they bring to the world’s human equation (i.e., entertainment). The short is well-intentioned, but an overall inconsistent satire on the need for entertainment in our lives. Spliced together with hundreds of stock footage segments, the documentary unfolds like so many of the documentaries found on public television, presenting residents of Los Angeles as a species in the cog of life that fills the entertainment void, which itself is on par with food, water and shelter.

This tongue-in-cheek film presents its ideas concisely, but its humor does not quite hit the mark. Perhaps the one thing missing most in this satire is a sense of discovery. The best educational shows like Frontline or on the Discovery Channel often set up their documentary subjects as mysteries that need to be unfolded. It poses questions at the onset and we watch the edu-tainment unfold like a classic mystery, finally getting the full answers to often complex questions. Angelenos’ presentation is much more straightforward and its impact suffers slightly, as a result.

For being made on such a micro-budget of $500, the makers of Angelenos certainly get a lot of bang for their creative buck, but the short ultimately left me wanting.

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