Art of the Prank (2015)
The great media prankster, Joey Skaggs, wants to fool the world media AGAIN, and, with the most complex hoax of his career in the pipeline, he now must use every trick in his prankster's arsenal to make it work. Art of the Prank is an emotional journey following the evolution of artist Joey Skaggs-a fierce proponent of independent thinking and the man who has turned the media hoax into an art form. With unprecedented access to the man and his archives, the 95-minute documentary interweaves a current unfolding hoax with a look behind-the-scenes at some classic performance pieces (all reported as fact by a wide range of prestigious journalists) plus commentary from co-conspirators and others. -IMDB
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Skaggs is America's preeminent prankster. He's been making American grin again for over forty years with hilarious but thought provoking satires/hoaxes that expose the vapidity of the mainstream media. This film documents his whole career and shows him at work today. He invented FAKE NEWS and should get a royalty every time those words are uttered by Trump and his hapless surrogates. Do yourself a favor and see this film.You'll never experience reality the same way again!
Loved, loved, LOVED this movie! I like to laugh when I watch a flick and this one did not disappoint. A guy dressed as a priest bicycling around midtown with a booth in tow to offer quick confessions to New Yorkers? Who is then covered by the earnest local press as a sincere cutting edge padre ministering to the harried masses? If you think that might be funny, see this movie! And the construct is terrific: instead of doing just a "greatest hits" compendium of Joey Skaggs' pranks that fooled print and TV reporters (of which there are plenty in the movie), the documentary morphs into a close-up of a Joey prank which is a fake documentary that fooled the festival cinema crowd. The pace is great and the laughs are heartfelt. I saw this with a pal who thought this was not a good time to cast reporting in a negative light considering the present hostile environment created by Trump and his acolytes. I say, fear not, oh defenders of the fourth estate! This movie is a great tonic against all that madness. I wish everyone sees it - they will experience a wonderfully apolitical HILARIOUS treatise on what fake news REALLY is all about.
I discovered Joey Skaggs through his interview in RE/Search: Pranks!, a book that transformed my worldview two decades ago. I always wanted to see video footage of his media stunts and colorful public performances.This is that, and more.Just as Skaggs's work is well-suited for video, his ideas are urgently relevant to our current predicament. This doc will acquaint you with an artist and avuncular personality who makes the world brighter and smarter through mischief. It will remind you to question your assumptions, that power structures are more permeable than they seem, and that fun can still triumph over fear.
Wonder why anyone believes in Pizzagate, or in countless other "fake news" stories planted on the internet? Way back in the 70s, media prankster Joey Skaggs began gleefully and successfully exploiting precisely this sort of "need to believe" with such elaborate hoaxes as "Cathouse for Dogs" and "Celebrity Sperm Bank," embarrassing media outlets and the public into eagerly falling for dozens of them over the years. This highly entertaining and funny documentary of Skaggs's career is essential viewing for anyone who is interested in the techniques by which our notions of reality can easily be manipulated.