MATINEE – Confessions of a Superhero

Today, Los Angeles Magazine posted a feature on local “outsiders.” I recognized Harry Perry immediately of course, but when I saw the man in the tuxedo it took me a moment to register it as Dennis Woodruff… the lone cowboy-hatted, crazy car-owning man who once clamored for attention by yelling “Put me in your movie!” in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater long before the arrival of the smelly superheroes of Hollywood & Highland.

In the 1980s, Dennis Woodruff and Angelyne were the two most visible eccentrics on the streets of Hollywood… each determined to seize their 15 minutes of fame without offering any talent in return. My friends and I always got a good laugh out of sighting these strange local icons all over town, to us they were harmless eccentrics whose obsession with fame made us uncomfortable but caught our attention like a bad car accident. We just couldn’t look away… but we didn’t expect the “famous for nothing” path to become a goal for so many people in the future. We didn’t foresee that Angelyne would lead to Heidi Montag.

But I digress. Besides the Los Angeles Magazine article mentioned above, the topic of outsiders is prevalent today since it appears that there’s currently a serious crackdown on the previously mentioned smelly costumed characters of Hollywood Boulevard (or as KTLA painfully called it, a “Zorro Tolerance Policy” – click here for obligatory rimshot). Yes, it looks like there may be quite a few former Spidermen and Captain Jack Sparrows applying for barista jobs in the near future. So while I can’t say I’ll miss them much personally, in honor of these unique individuals we’re going to relive their former glory days by embedding the preview of Matt Ogen’s critically acclaimed documentary Confessions of a Superhero for your viewing pleasure today (a link is provided above to watch the whole film). Enjoy. :)