I'm a huge joe frank fan. I drive around in melbourne australia with a joe frank bumper sticker hoping one day someone will say hey i love joe frank too and we will spend the next few hours in a pub talking about our favourite stories.
I had high hopes for this. I saw it playing out two different ways: An introductory doco for those with no knowledge of joe. Or a detailed biography of joe's life. The film was a mix of both, a luke warmish introduction with those close to him disclosing little facets of his life here and there. I didn't feel like I knew anything more about Joe after watching it. It was more about how his wife and friends felt about him.
His peers such as david cross and ira glass paying tribute was good. The best parts of the film were when they just played joe snippets. I much preferred the radiolab tribute to him, was a better balance and let segments of Joe's work play out longer. I would have been happy for a 2 hour celebration of his work, adding actors and scenery to accompany the audio.
This was always going to be a difficult project, how to represent a man and his works that transcend visual medium. I do want to add that even though my review isn't painting a stellar picture I'm still grateful for the feature.