It's a shame Allen fired her from that play. After all, then she might not have had the time to make this documentary.

| May 4, 2007

As for her anticorporate muckraking, I can say only that I have watched Michael Moore and I have met Michael Moore, and Gurwitch is no Michael Moore.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 23, 2007

Serious portions, in which Gurwitch appears far too often to be mugging and cracking wise, are intercut with dumb sketches.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 15, 2007

A sharper documentarian might've tried harder to bridge the gap between the problems of the legitimate American work force and the struggles of relatively well-off celebrities, but Gurwitch, while charming, isn't exactly brimming with insight.

Full Review | Original Score: D+ | Feb 10, 2007

The video is heavy on actors and other showbiz types, and the self-centered Gurwitch doesn't distinguish between a factory worker laid off after decades on the job and an actor getting rejected during tryouts.

| Feb 9, 2007

At the very least, it's gainful, worthwhile employment for its likable star.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 8, 2007

Ignore the earnest bits here and zero in on what Fired! does best -- treating trauma with a light-bright touch.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 7, 2007

Fired! won't offer much by way of revelation to anyone who has entered (and involuntarily exited) the workforce over the past 20 years, but the account it provides is both comforting for its all-inclusiveness and troubling for its implications.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 7, 2007

The documentary Fired! contains slivers of shtick that play more as diverting filler than prime comedy material.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 5, 2007

The film is funny for the first 10 minutes -- maybe 15 -- but it soon grows tiresome and repetitive.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 2, 2007

Annabelle Gurwitch was fired from a play by Woody Allen and has been making something of a cottage industry out of the experience ever since. Having written a book about being fired, she has now made a documentary as well, and it's something of a mess.

| Original Score: C | Feb 1, 2007

Gurwitch examines what it is about being sacked that gnaws so angrily at the American mentality and how a country that once held the promise of lifelong employment now offers perpetual insecurity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 1, 2007

The result is generous-spirited, often funny and occasionally striking.

| Jan 30, 2007

While 'maybe it's for the best' proved happily prophetic for her actor pals, those words of comfort sound more like a clueless bromide when you consider the 30,000 people laid off in Lansing after the film wrapped.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2007

A free-wheeling, first-person docu that recalls early efforts of Michael Moore.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2007

Documentarians Chris Bradley and Kyle Labrache keep things moving at a nice pace while indulging Gurwitch's possibly too frequent attempts to tie the expanding film in to the event that inspired it.

Full Review | Jan 30, 2007