I hate celebrity culture.  Even hating celebrity culture is part of the omnipresent celebrity culture.  I don’t think it can even be avoided by ignoring it.  It’s like air—it’s just always there.

I have only been to L.A. once but I, when I was there, everybody I met first asked me two questions: (1) where I was from and (2) which celebrities I had seen so far.  When I returned home, everybody I know led off with that second question.  At least they remembered who I was and didn’t feel compelled to ask the first question as well.

2006 comedy Delirious is all about celebrities and our obsession with them.  Steve Buscemi plays a bitter paparazzi in New York City, always trying to score a lucrative photo that will give him wide exposure.  “The shot heard ‘round the world” as he keeps putting it.

His character here is the kind of the person who trips over something in his own apartment and is immediately, and personally, offended by the thing he tripped over.  He’s also delusional and self-absorbed.  Perhaps his character can be best summed up when he interrupts his assistant in mid-sentence to declare, “Me, I’m a listener.”

Michael Pitt plays that assistant, a homeless guy who arranges to do work in exchange for a place to sleep.  Pitt’s first assignment will be to empty a closet.  There, declares Buscemi, now Pitt has his own room.

Pitt proves his value almost immediately when they are doing a stakeout outside a clinic where a celebrity played by Kevin Corrigan is getting penile corrective surgery.  As Corrigan exits onto the street, Pitt calls out his name, prompting him to look up and also expose the tent he’s pitched in his sweatpants. 

Beaming with pride, Buscemi takes Pitt to meet his parents, bringing along a copy of each of the many papers carrying his latest photo.  The little time we spend with the parents provides ample evidence for why Buscemi has so many unresolved anger issues. 

The big turn in the plot occurs when the two are at an awards show and trying to get pics of an extremely popular pop singer played by Alison Lohman.  She is solo at the awards gala, having recently dumped the guy who got the boner surgery.  When she’s cornered by reporters, Pitt catches her eye and she declares he’s her date that night.  When Pitt is taken by her into the more exclusive area, Buscemi is left behind.  Needless to say, he doesn’t take this well.

I was happy to Lohman in this, and I hadn’t seen her in anything in a while.  As a huge fan of Drag Me to Hell, I was very confused at first, because I wondered how she could be a pop star while still doing her day job at the bank.

The humor here is satirical but not too far over-the-top.  Probably the farthest reach was one of my favorite jokes here, a benefit called “Soap Stars Against STPs.”  I was also amused by the concept of Slice of Life, supposedly a reality TV soap where Pitt will play a homeless serial killer.  Cute title, complete with bloody knife between “slice” and “life”.

The third act has a development I didn’t believe, but that didn’t prevent the movie from sticking the landing.  In the end, Delirious is a fairly gentle satire of society’s obsession with celebrities, with more focus on the humanity of its characters than I would have expected.

Dir: Tom Dicillo

Starring Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman

Watched on blu-ray (Director’s Cut version)