Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure

2011

1 hr. 25 min.

Drama

Comedy

List

70%

30 Reviews

Tomatometer

62%

500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Friends accidentally create the world's first viral video when they record fighting neighbors.

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Audience Member

An hilarious glimpse inside the wacky world of two misfit friends, an '"Odd Couple" of the morbid kind. Drunk, delusional, demented, this Oscar and Felix-type duo will have you in stitches while shaking your head wondering "why are these two roommates?" It's a must see if you like sick humor and human nature.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/13/23

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Audience Member

Weaves along the uncomfortable line between fascinating, and mean spiritedness. Insightful in the end, but leaves you more uneasy than inspired by any claimed artistic merit.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/20/23

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Audience Member

Interesting story but you really feel bad for the neighbours being made a joke and a cash cow for two jerks who recorded them without their permission. But they, it's for art..... yeah right.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

02/12/23

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Audience Member

A great story of 1980s recordings of drunken quarrelings between San Francisco neighbors, and the phenomenon resulting from tape traders in the 1990s, and the hunt to find the original quarrelers in the 2000s.

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

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Audience Member

I would have liked to see more about the struggle to make the 3 different movies, that could be a whole doc in itself.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

01/28/23

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Audience Member

Mildly amusing documentary that raises a number of interesting topics (including voyeurism, privacy, and art vs. profitability issues), but does little or nothing with them. Worst of all, it never demonstrates why these recordings were so funny/popular in the first place. They come off as a "you had to be there" moments.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

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Matthew Bate

Director

Daniel Clowes

Actor

Mike Mitchell

Actor

Robert Mothersbaugh

Actor

Henry S. Rosenthal

Actor

Gregg Gibbs

Actor

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Critics Consensus: Colombiana Goes Way Over The Top

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Brian Tallerico

HollywoodChicago.com

What starts as a clever comedy piece about the popularity of the actual recordings becomes something more poignant when director Matthew Bate starts asking questions about privacy and unwanted celebrity.

Rated: 3.5/5.0

Oct 14, 2011

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J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

The unsuspecting stars (who died in 1992 and '96, respectively) begin to seem less like nightmare neighbors and more like the victims of rampant exploitation and voyeurism.

Oct 13, 2011

Full Review

Chris Chang

Film Comment Magazine

It's a fascinating, occasionally nauseating tale of wasted human life, energy, and brain cells.

Oct 9, 2011

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Pat Padua

DCist

An intriguing study of how information spreads, and a sober meditation on human relationships.

Aug 30, 2018

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Chris Foran

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Bate sort of lets everyone off the hook under the art-for-art's-sake clause. But at least he raises the still-relevant question of whether just because you can tape your neighbor makes it art - or makes it right.

Rated: 2.5/4

Sep 29, 2011

Full Review

Rob Thomas

Capital Times (Madison, WI)

As much fun as "Shut Up, Little Man" is at times, you can't shake the feeling that watching the documentary is the next link in a long chain of exploitation that leads back 20 years.

Rated: 2.5/4

Sep 23, 2011

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Synopsis

Friends accidentally create the world's first viral video when they record fighting neighbors.

Director: Matthew Bate
Executive Producer: Stephen Cleary, Julie Ryan
Screenwriter: Matthew Bate
Production Co: Adelaide Film Festival, Filmlab , The South Australian Film Corporation, Closer Productions
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Original Language: English (Australia)
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 24, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA): $19.7K

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