Confessions of a Superhero

Confessions of a Super Hero is a rather glum documentary with very little wiggle room to expand beyond its original premise of four misfits costuming themselves in super hero to make a living on Hollywood Boulevard. Talk about your boulevard of broken dreams.

Confessions follows four (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Hulk) comic book hero impersonators as they make their daily appearances and delude themselves into thinking they have a future in the movie industry. Three of the four seem to be in serious denial (is this a prerequisite to going' Hollywood) as they hope to catapult to success with the flimsiest of chances by working for tips by posing with tourists on Vicki Lester's corner. It's a hopeless situation from the outset and the doc just kind of gloomily lies around reaffirming things for the last hour with our heroes and their faithful spouses fighting the heat, anger issues and union workers over a port a john before fading into the wallpaper.

Director Matthew Ogens needlessly stretches out Super Hero by flogging it with jump cut filler and scenes in need of trim. It doesn't help that Superman and Batman may well be living in a parallel universe and seem less than forthright about their pasts which make for moments of uncomfortable, embarrassment. But Ogens does himself no favor by filming the fully costumed Batman in therapy admitting to murdering someone. It reeks along with much of Confessions of a Super Hero of false declaration that Ogens not only depends on but showcases resulting in it being more exploitive than revealing.

I loved this film and it has "stayed with me" since I first saw it in 2007. If anything, it's even more poignant in light of how its centerpiece character met his ultimate fate. I admire how the filmmakers didn't patronize or make fun of their subjects. Christopher Lloyd Dennis, a genuine oddball, is portrayed in a straight-forward, non-judgmental way, and is actually quite likeable. The film's ancillary characters, most especially the Texas Batman impersonator, certainly less-so. At one point, he even seemingly confesses to have committed a murder. All in all, a well-crafted film and a fairly unfiltered window into an otherwise unknown world.

Wouldn't go out of my way to find this one...okay for late-night viewing if you channel-surf to it.

I think Morgan Spurlock dresses up in the Superman suit in the telephone booth to introduce the film, but that also falls a bit flat.

The characters and their stories just aren't that exceptional or interesting. The small-town history of the Wonder Woman character is a perfect example. Whether Christopher Dennis is really Sandy Dennis's son is somewhat interesting, but left unresolved.

Also interesting is that Christopher Dennis certainly doesn't have the Superman physique. Margot Kidder mentions this in a roundabout way. He should wear a padded-suit-image a 98lb weakling instead!

His obsession with Superman reminded me of another film called Cinemania (2002 Angela Christlieb) about NY city film obsessives.

A fascinating and somewhat depressing look into the world of some street performers in Hollywood. A good documentary for those who have dreams of making it big in movies.

So Wonder Woman/ Jennifer Wenger actually described this entire documentary in a few sentences when she described Hollywood Superman/ Christopher Dennis.

When I watched this film for the first time ten years ago during 2011 I had no idea that I was going to meet Christopher Dennis months later and speak with him bimonthly for years. By that time, he had divorced his wife Bonnie, who he was shown marrying in this film. He said only positive things about her, but he seemed to have only a passing knowledge about her. When I asked him, "she is a psychologist, right?" he replied, "no, she is a psychiatrist." Incorrect. His ignorance about someone with whom he was supposedly close is representative of this entire film. The "actors" who were featured in it were mostly selfish and myopic, and they had great difficulty in having sustained, healthy relationships with people and reality in general as a result. Fascinating.

Also, for me, it has great sentimental value. It shows Los Angeles before its slow, excruciating death during the last several years-- a place of many opportunities for people who could rein in their insanities, however temporarily.

Jennifer Wenger, who I believe is the best actor by far in the film and is part of what makes it watchable, accomplished it. She married a B list actor, and she made a name for herself in underground movies. Her "costars" in this film didn't fare nearly as well. Christopher Dennis has died from a meth addiction, Batman/ Maxwell Allen was banned from "performing" on Hollywood Boulevard and was forced to move onto Las Vegas, and I saw Hulk/ Joe McQueen on the boulevard as recently as 2019.

Sad. But you can't look away. You can't.