Learning more about Berman's childhood and problems faced completing the documentary just isn't that interesting, and once you see through the illusion, the magic quickly starts to fade.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Feb 6, 2020

[The Amazing Johnathan Documentary] provides a fascinating look at art, perception and the nature of truth.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2019

A cursory tale that it's well worth planning things in advance as much as possible, this is a gnat's breath away from being a complete disaster, but is saved by a first-time director's naive faith it will all be saved in the edit.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 25, 2019

As a device for a film it's interesting to a point -- but it didn't fully work its magic on me.

| Nov 21, 2019

Neither filmmaker nor subject comes out particularly well here, but the battle of wills that ensues takes the film in some entertainingly oddball directions.

| Nov 21, 2019

The Amazing Johnathan Documentary starts as a blast but as the journey progresses, becomes ever more slippery: Is Szeles tricking Berman? Is Berman bamboozling us? The answer is entertaining and frustrating in equal measures.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 19, 2019

The oddities and mysteries he encountered would have forced anyone in his position to revise the project, but - intriguing though the film is - he seems a bit too quick to include himself in it.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 18, 2019

It's compelling stuff: funny, moving and, yes, often amazing. Johnathan is a slippery subject, but in Berman he has a committed chronicler, who is even prepared to smoke meth with him on camera.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2019

This is an interestingly ambiguous documentary about form, method and honesty, as well as the motives, sometimes subconscious, that propel us into projects.

| Nov 18, 2019

Timely, infuriating and empathetic, Berman's personable account of a film gone wrong makes for an engrossing diversion into practical magic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2019

A daft, dazzling exercise in reflexivity, albeit a somewhat familiar one.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2019

It's an enjoyable, dizzying spiral of a story...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2019

For 91 tiring minutes, director Ben Berman sort of tells a story that is sort of interesting but maybe not really, padding the film with selfie footage of his own chaotic production problems.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 15, 2019

It clinches - or un-clinches - everything we have previously seen and heard.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 14, 2019

Goes off into a bizarre direction, one that's moderately interesting but doesn't succeed in bringing its various strands together.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2019

It's funny that Berman worried so much about there being too many docs being made about Szeles since he wound up basically making two in one. And both of them are exceptional.

| Aug 21, 2019

I think people's mileage with this documentary will depend on how charming you think Benjamin Berman is... I didn't find him incredibly charming.

| Aug 20, 2019

Your BS detector may go off early, but it's still a funny and fascinating portrait of a guy who used to be on top and is trying to recapture some of that glory, even though he's on death's door.

| Aug 19, 2019

One of the most fascinating portraits of the human condition and the power of manipulation.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2019

"The Amazing Johnathan Documentary" is ostensibly about a comic and is often very funny. There are snatches out of the Amazing Johnathan archive and repertoire, which includes gross-out gags and no small amount of meta magic.

| Aug 16, 2019