I just wanted to say that the sonic youth video is not a fake. Daniel's one time manager, Jeff Tartakov, showed several people a copy shortly after the incident. I understand why Stephanie might think this is a fake, because its seemed weird at the time I saw it. But it is real.

I first fell for Mr. Johnston after watching Kids and picking up the soundtrack for the movie. 'Casper the Friendly Ghost' was one of the best songs I had ever heard. Add his out there artwork and website (hihowareyou.com) and you've got my god damn admiration.

-alec

I know this is nitpicky, but Daniel is from WEST Virginia, not Virginia.

DJ sounds like an interesting and talented guy, and I'm curious about his work and the film, but I have to wonder - if he hit Stephanie Zacharek over the head with a lead pipe, as he did his manager, would she still find his fragility "endearing" and more dangerous to him than the rest of us? She never fails to make at least one bone-headed comment per review.

I've always looked askance at the hipster letch for "off" people, whether it's the audience for Wesley Willis, the cult surrounding those recordings of the retarded kids from Widney High, or the long-lived Daniel Johnston fandom. Sometimes it all seems like a sincere desire to see, hear and admire true outsiders...and sometimes it just comes off as an especially snide group of marks gawping at the freak show. But Daniel has written some damn catchy tunes in his day, and at least he's shown more gumption in the face of his trials than, oh, Ian, Darby and Kurt.

My favorite Johnston performance comes from the video comp released by the zine Chemical Imbalance back in 90/91. Recorded during a stay in a mental clinic (allegedly after he'd thrown his landlady down the stairs after seeing some manifestation of the Devil in her eyes), Daniel plays a big pump organ and belts out his classic, "Don't Play Cards With Satan". His belief in what he's singing fills the song with such amazing passion; by the time he gets to the third verse, tears rolling down his cheeks, he's shrieking the lines: "I heard the voice of SATAN!!!...calling...from the woods...I heard the voice of SATAN!!!...calling from the woods."

The crowd of college alt collector scum with whom I was watching started out giggling - "Oh, Jesus, Daniel Johnston...look, is he in hospital togs?!? Aw, maaaan..."- and ended just open-mouthed in awe, silenced by shame. Now that's rock'n'roll.

Stephanie says, "And while Feuerzeig doesn't ignore their Christian fundamentalism, he doesn't use it as a scapegoat, either: He clearly has enough respect for the gravity of Johnston's emotional problems to know that they couldn't have been caused, or even necessarily aggravated, by Bible-thumping."

I disagree, from the home-movie DJ made mocking his mom, to the tapes of her frustrated lectures, the makers of this movie deliberately went out of their way to imply some sort of blame and guilt onto them (and by association, christianity and fundamentalism) for DJ's situation. The filmmakers final, shameful editing trick comes towards the end when we get to see DJ's current life that his parents have constructed for him, with his schedule and his activities, his profitable art projects, and then we get to hear an old tape of young DJ explaining that his mother once told him that her greatest fear was growing old and not having the kids take care of her. Implying, of course, that the only reason they house and keep him is not love or caring, but money. For me, at that point, the filmmakers manipulation brought this otherwise fascinating film to an abrupt slide into pure hipster crap.

There is a deleted scene on the DVD where we get to see all of his father's models of the airplanes he's flown, and it is shot in such a ugly, mocking manner, that we as the viewer are quite aware that the old man does not realize how ridiculous the director is making him look. It is a sad that this director cannot seem to find the least bit of sympathy or respect for the old man.

Lets hope that Feuerzeig, who obviously has talent in making documentaries and piecing together footage, grows up a little bit as he approaches his next project, whatever that may be.