Camp Hollywood (2004)

When I see movies or news reports about people going to Hollywood hoping to make it in the movie industry, I'm always amazed if any succeed to any degree. There was a thing on some TV news magazine following a woman and her son she was trying to get into the movies. It ended with the kid on the set of either a Village of the Damned remake or something that may as well have been a Village of the Damned remake. The boy's estranged father put an end to it. He disapproved of his child being rich and famous and got a judge to order than he remain poor and unemployed.

Camp Hollywood is a documentary made by Canadian comedian Steve Markle about the Highland Gardens Hotel, a run down hotel that looks more like what you'd think of as a motel, where actors go as they wait for success. Canadians tend to flock there.

There's a Canadian alcoholic former high school drama teacher. He came to Hollywood after being fired for mooning his class. There's a Canadian former model, a Canadian TV star who wants to be an American TV star. The filmmaker himself is trying to become an American comedian. There are also a few successful actors including a couple who've lived there for 25 years, living wisely within their means among the young people.

Everyone there is good-looking. One Canadian guy seemed cartoonishly good-looking. He was good-looking in a way that didn't seem quite right somehow. Most are unemployed. But, amazingly, a few make it. They get hired for TV series.

When you're trying to be an actor, you have to be free to go to auditions and to perform the occasional gig. This means you can't do anything else. If you work, it has to be at a bad job you can freely take time off from. You can't go to college. So the actors mostly hang around slowly going broke.

There's a director called Monty who shows up with a cast and one-man crew filming a silent film at the hotel without permission. He's incredibly obnoxious. The cast and crew were working for free.

"It's amazing what actors will put up with to add a credit to their resume," Markle says.

"Go fuck yourself," the DP says as he walks off with his camera.

They had to stop filming. It started raining and the desk clerk came out and told them to stop because the hotel could be liable if someone slipped and fell.

Made me wonder about workman's comp for cast and crew who work on movies for free. I looked it up. It turns out that organizations commonly provide workman's comp for volunteers and it's not expensive.

I looked up the obnoxious director on line. His name is Alex Monty Canawati. He got money to finish his movie called Return to Babylon. The estimated budget was $2 million. Jennifer Tilly and Tippi Hedren appear in it. They publicized it with rumors that the movie was haunted the ghosts of silent movie stars.

Camp Hollywood is available on Fandor.