Feels Good Man

Last updated

Feels Good Man
Feels Good Man poster.jpeg
Directed byArthur Jones
Produced by
  • Giorgio Angelini
  • Caryn Capotosto
  • Arthur Jones
  • Aaron Wickenden
Cinematography
  • Giorgio Angelini
  • Ben Cox
  • Kurt Keppeler
  • Guy Mossman
  • David Usui
Edited by
  • Aaron Wickenden
  • Drew Blatman
  • Katrina Taylor
Music by
  • Ari Balouzian
  • Ryan Hope
Production
companies
  • Ready Fictions
  • Wavelength
Distributed by Giant Pictures
Release dates
  • January 27, 2020 (2020-01-27)(Sundance)
  • August 28, 2020 (2020-08-28)(United States)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Feels Good Man is a 2020 American documentary film about the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Marking the directorial debut of Arthur Jones, the film stars artist Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe. The film follows Furie as he struggles to reclaim control of Pepe from members of the alt-right who have co-opted the image for their own purposes. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. It was also nominated in the U.S. Documentary Competition at Sundance. [1]

Contents

Plot

Pepe the Frog, a character created by Matt Furie and first featured in a comic on MySpace called Boy's Club, is one of four twentysomething postcollegiate slacker friends who live together. [2] [3] In one installment, Pepe is caught by one of his housemates with his pants around his ankles, urinating. [2] Asked why, he replies, "Feels good man". [2] The image becomes a viral Internet meme and is co-opted by the alt-right. [2] [4]

Furie attempts to take Pepe back from the alt-right who have turned him from a cartoon character into a symbol for hate. [2] The film deals with the question of whether Pepe can be redeemed. [5] [6] [7] The coda of the film alludes to Pepe's appropriation by pro-democracy demonstrators during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests. [8]

Development

Feels Good Man is the directorial debut of Arthur Jones. [4] [8] Jones described the film as: [4]

The movie is really about him negotiating that uncomfortable reality for himself, [...] Matt's personal journey really makes the movie really unique that I hope a lot of people find satisfying for a lot of reasons.

Jones, who was also film editor, finished the edit two days prior to the premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. [4] He described the editing process as a "slow-rolling panic attack", but said he was looking forward to showing the film at the festival. [4]

Release

As of early February 2020 the film was seeking distribution. [9] It also appeared as part of PBS's Independent Lens . [10] In October 2020, it was broadcast on BBC Four as part of its Storyville series. [11]

Critical response

The film has earned critical acclaim. [6] [7] [3]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 95%, based on 81 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The website's consensus reads, "A cautionary tale on internet culture, Feels Good Man is a compelling look at an artist's journey to salvage his creation." [12] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 79 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [13]

Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com wrote: "Jones' movie is a beacon of internet literacy about a whole new language—that memes are flexible, omnipotent, and pieces of a phenomenon more powerful than their creators". [5]

Vox Media's Polygon called it "the most important political film of 2020". [9]

Awards and nominations

Feels Good Man won a U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker at the Sundance Film Festival and won an Emmy Award in 2021 for Outstanding Research: Documentary. [14] [15] It was also nominated in the festival's U.S. Documentary Competition. [16] [17]

Awards and nominations for Feels Good Man
AwardYearCategoryResultRef(s).
Cleveland International Film Festival 2020Ad Hoc Docs CompetitionNominated [18]
Sundance Film Festival U.S. Documentary CompetitionNominated [16]
U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Emerging FilmmakerWon [14]
Lighthouse International Film FestivalBest Feature-Length DocumentaryWon [14] [19]
B3 BEN Award of the B3 Biennial of the Moving Image Best DocumentaryWon [14] [20]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Isaac Chung</span> American film director and screenwriter

Lee Isaac Chung is an American filmmaker. His debut feature Munyurangabo (2007) was an official selection at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and the first narrative feature film in the Kinyarwanda language.

<i>The Internets Own Boy</i> 2014 American film

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz is a 2014 American biographical documentary film about Aaron Swartz written, directed, and produced by Brian Knappenberger. The film premiered in the US Documentary Competition program category at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pepe the Frog</span> Webcomic character and Internet meme

Pepe the Frog is a webcomic character and Internet meme created by cartoonist Matt Furie. Designed as a green anthropomorphic frog with a humanoid body, Pepe originated in Furie's 2005 comic Boy's Club. The character became an Internet meme when his popularity steadily grew across websites such as Myspace, Gaia Online, and 4chan in 2008. By 2015, he had become one of the most popular memes used on 4chan and Tumblr. Different types of Pepe memes include "Sad Frog", "Smug Frog", "Angry Pepe", "Feels Frog", and "You will never..." Frog. Since 2014, "rare Pepes" have been posted on the "meme market" as if they were trading cards.

Matt Furie is an American comics artist and illustrator. He is known for creating Pepe the Frog, a character from his Boy's Club series that debuted in 2005. The anthropomorphic character became a popular Internet meme in the late 2000s and early 2010s. After the meme was co-opted by the alt-right in 2015 and designated a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League in 2016, Furie campaigned to reclaim the character, pursuing copyright infringement cases against its use in hate-related contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dat Boi</span> Meme of a frog riding a unicycle

Dat Boi is an Internet meme originating from the clip art website Animation Factory. The meme garnered popularity on Tumblr in 2015 before gaining more recognition through Twitter in 2016. It is usually accompanied by a person saying "here come dat boi".

<i>Minari</i> (film) 2020 drama film by Lee Isaac Chung

Minari is a 2020 American drama film written and directed by Lee Isaac Chung. It stars Steven Yeun, Han Ye-ri, Alan Kim, Noel Kate Cho, Youn Yuh-jung, and Will Patton. A semi-autobiographical take on Chung's upbringing, the plot follows a family of South Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas during the 1980s.

Marilyn Ness is a documentary film producer and director based in New York City who made the social justice documentaries Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale (2010), Cameraperson (2016), and Charm City (2018). More recent projects include the Netflix Original documentary Becoming with Michelle Obama, which was nominated for four Primetime Emmy awards and Netflix Original documentary Dick Johnson is Dead, which was on the Academy Award Shortlist for Best Documentary in 2021. She is as of 2021 an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2020 Sundance Film Festival</span> Film festival

The 2020 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 23 to February 2, 2020. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 4, 2019. The opening night film was Miss Americana directed by Lana Wilson and produced by Morgan Neville, Caitrin Rogers, and Christine O'Malley.

<i>Welcome to Chechnya</i> 2020 documentary about the anti-LGBT purges in Chechnya

Welcome to Chechnya is a 2020 documentary film by American reporter, author and documentarian David France. The film centers on the anti-gay purges in Chechnya of the late 2010s, filming LGBT Chechen refugees using hidden cameras as they made their way out of Russia through a network of safehouses aided by activists.

<i>Dick Johnson Is Dead</i> 2020 documentary film by Kirsten Johnson

Dick Johnson Is Dead is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Kirsten Johnson and co-written by Johnson and Nels Bangerter. The story focuses on Johnson's father Richard, who suffers from dementia, portraying different ways—some of them violent "accidents"—in which he could ultimately die. In each scenario, the elderly Johnson plays along with his daughter's black humor and imaginative fantasies. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Innovation in Non-fiction Storytelling. It was released on Netflix on October 2, 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidney Flanigan</span> American actress and singer-songwriter

Sidney Jeanne Flanigan is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Flanigan made her acting debut with the acclaimed independent drama film Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), for which she received nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.

<i>Crip Camp</i> 2020 documentary film

Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution is a 2020 American documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Nicole Newnham and James LeBrecht. Barack and Michelle Obama served as executive producers under their Higher Ground Productions banner.

<i>Love Fraud</i> American true crime documentary miniseries

Love Fraud is an American true crime documentary television miniseries, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, about the hunt for a serial romance scammer. It premiered on August 30, 2020, on Showtime.

<i>Time</i> (2020 film) 2020 American film

Time is an Academy Award-nominated 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson and her fight for the release of her husband, Rob, who was serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.

<i>The Truffle Hunters</i> 2020 documentary film directed by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw

The Truffle Hunters is a 2020 documentary film directed and produced by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw. It follows a group of aging men hunting in the woods, for a prized quarry, the Alba truffle. Luca Guadagnino serves as an executive producer under his Frenesy Film Company banner.

<i>The Fight</i> (2020 film) 2020 American documentary film

The Fight is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Eli Despres, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg. Kerry Washington serves as a producer under her Simpson Street banner. It follows legal battles that lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had faced during the Trump administration.

A rare Pepe or RarePepe is a variation on the "Pepe the Frog" internet meme, itself based on a character created by Matt Furie. The related Rare Pepe crypto project, created by various artists worldwide between 2016 and 2018, was based on the aforementioned meme and traded as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) recorded on the CounterParty platform. A total of 1,774 official cards were released for the project across 36 series.

<i>Navalny</i> (film) 2022 American film

Navalny is a 2022 American documentary film directed by Daniel Roher. The film revolves around Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and events related to his poisoning. It was produced by HBO Max and CNN Films. The film premiered on January 25, 2022 at the Sundance Film Festival, where it received critical and audience acclaim and won the Audience Award in the US Documentary competition and the Festival Favorite Award. It also won the Best Documentary Feature at the 95th Academy Awards, won the award for Best Political Documentary at the 7th Critics' Choice Documentary Awards and picked up best documentary at the 76th BAFTA awards ceremony.

This is the list of winners of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for documentary features.

This is a list of winners of the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for dramatic features.

References

  1. ↑ Feels Good Man Trailer #1 (2020)|Movieclips Indie on YouTube
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Gidney, Norman (30 January 2020). "Feels Good Man". FilmThreat. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  3. 1 2 Schager, Nick (27 January 2020). "'Feels Good Man': Film Review". Variety. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Hoyt, James (27 January 2020). "Pepe documentary 'Feels Good Man' reveals the struggle of the man behind the frog". Park Record. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  5. 1 2 Allen, Nick. "Sundance 2020: Spree, Feels Good Man | Sundance | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  6. 1 2 Fienberg, Daniel (27 January 2020). "'Feels Good Man': Film Review | Sundance 2020". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  7. 1 2 Ehrlich, David (28 January 2020). "'Feels Good Man' Review: Pepe the Frog Creator Matt Furie Tries to Redeem Internet's Most Racist Amphibian". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020.
  8. 1 2 Hunt, Elle (24 October 2020). "Hunting Pepe?". New Scientist . 248 (3305): 31. Bibcode:2020NewSc.248...31H. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(20)31884-4. ISSN   0262-4079. S2CID   242567242.
  9. 1 2 Patches, Matt (4 February 2020). "The new doc Feels Good Man tells the truth about Pepe the Frog". Polygon. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  10. ↑ FEELS GOOD MAN|Films|Battle to Take Pepe the Frog Back|PBS
  11. ↑ Storyville - Pepe the Frog: Feels Good Man , retrieved 18 January 2021
  12. ↑ "Feels Good Man". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango . Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  13. ↑ "Feels Good Man (2020) Reviews". Metacritic . Retrieved 8 December 2020.
  14. 1 2 3 4 Hipes, Patrick (2 February 2020). "Sundance Film Festival Awards: 'Minari' Scores Double Top Honors – The Complete Winners List". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  15. ↑ Debruge, Peter (2 February 2020). "Sundance Winners: 'Minari' and 'Boys State' Take Top Honors". Variety. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  16. 1 2 "'20 Sundance Film Festival – U.S. Documentary Films". sundance.org. Archived from the original on 4 February 2020. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  17. ↑ MUBI
  18. ↑ "Ad Hoc Docs Competition - Cleveland International Film Festival :: April 7 - 18, 2021". www.clevelandfilm.org. Archived from the original on 11 June 2020. Retrieved 12 March 2020.
  19. ↑ "Awards | Lighthouse International Film Festival". www.lighthousefilmfestival.org. Archived from the original on 19 May 2021. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  20. ↑ "B3 BEN Award 2020 – B3". b3biennale.de. Archived from the original on 11 June 2021. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.