Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2011

Teenage Paparazzo: ©2009 RECKLESS PRODUCTIONS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Adrian Grenier, who’s famous for playing a guy who’s famous for being famous on TV’s Entourage, noticed that one of the paparazzi stalking him was just a kid, 13-year-old Austin Visschedyk. So he turned the tables, as well as his own camera, on the boy to fashion this fascinating look at the uneasy if symbiotic relationship between paparazzi and celebrities. The kid takes taxis or snags rides with fellow photogs to get to the next celeb-spotting spot. And he can pull down a grand for a single well-timed snap. The film is not particularly well crafted, but the idea and the subject are fresh enough to overlook its flaws. And you may question the inclusion of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan among the talking heads (also Lewis Black, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Noam Chomsky), but they just might know something about this. Then an interesting thing happens. Some philosopher said that you can’t study something without changing it, and Austin himself begins to attract a few beams of limelight; it goes to his head, another film crew begins sniffing around, and things threaten to spin out of control. You don’t know where this movie is going, and neither does Grenier. That’s OK.