AllMovie

Canadian filmmaker Alan Zweig, himself an admitted curmudgeon, devotes this talking-head documentary primarily to interviews with other curmudgeons with a similar sensibility. The movie consists largely of talking-head interviews with a variety of men and women, spanning several generations, who have the sourly cynical, intellectual view of the world that qualifies them as fellow curmudgeons. Some of the interviewees are renowned in various fields (author Fran Lebowitz, autobiographical comic strip creator Harvey Pekar, indie rock musician Mark Eitzel, media commentator Andrew Rooney); others are far less familiar to the general public. The interviews are largely devoted to humorous, at times philosophical, discussions (with plenty of illustrative anecdotes) about the curmudgeonly attitudes the subjects bring to their worlds, taking in jaded observations of popular culture, social institutions, and humanity as a whole.