Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon

Mike Myers's first film as director profiles music manager Shep Gordon, an idea Myers pitched to Gordon while he was recovering from surgery in a hospital bed, and which Gordon accepted reluctantly. The story of how Gordon fell into the business is among the film's best passages: in 1968 he worked exactly one day as a guard at a Los Angeles juvenile hall before changing his mind, then checked into what turned out to be one of the era's key rock hotels, and while trying to break up a poolside fight he was punched by the woman involved, who turned out to be Janis Joplin. When people at the hotel asked what he did and he said nothing, someone asked whether he was Jewish, told him he should be a manager, and introduced him to Alice Cooper. Gordon built Cooper's shock rock image on scandal, most famously in 1969 in Toronto when a chicken that wandered onstage was thrown into the crowd and torn apart. The film screened at the Toronto International Film Festival to a generally warm reception, though the most common criticism is that it plays less like a documentary than a Mike Myers love letter, with almost no critical distance. Who it's for: Anyone curious about rock history behind the scenes and the legendary figures of the music business. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting critical distance and hard questions, since the film approaches its subject with open admiration.