It shows that voyeurism goes beyond an empty curiosity. If you want to understand the root of reality TV shows, Bate's documentary gets at it. That's when the obsession turns to competition. There are then those who wish to profit off these tapes and these two old guys. Once the tapes start to spread, others start to share in the obsession as well. At first, spying on these two cantankerous elderly people is annoying but then it becomes amusing. The amazing thing about this movie is how the audience begins to share in Eddie and Mitch's obsession. For Eddie and Mitch, recording the two old men became a sociological, psychological or anthropological study. As Eddie and Mitch recorded them, Peter and Raymond's personalities were revealed. They lived together peacefully but frequently they got drunk and would have intense screaming matches. The two old men were named Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman. Eddie and Mitch lived in a crappy, apartment building, nicknamed the "Pepto Bismo Palace." It was known for its paper-thin walls, and, in the apartment next to Eddie and Mitch were two old men who argued very loudly, cursing and yelling at each other, often all night long. We're briefly introduced to these guys and only get a vague sense about them before being thrust into their obsession of tape recording their next door neighbors. Bate's film resurrects the cassette tapes made by Eddie and Mitch, two guys from Wisconsin who moved to San Francisco in 1987. This was before the proliferation of digital media. This was before the idea of online viral videos on the Internet. ![]() Matthew Bate's documentary focuses on particular tape recordings that were made from 1987 to 1989. One recent type was the rant by Christian Bale during his Terminator Salvation shoot, which was posted online and became viral. Audio vérité is "found sound" or tape recordings that have captured people being real, either angry or frustrated. This movie documents one of the most prime examples of audio vérité.
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