In March 2017, I drove to Green Bay to see Corey Feldman & The Angels play a show at the Green Bay Distillery. I wrote about the show in a subsequent review, “I saw Corey Feldman & The Angels in Green Bay and, well, I don’t know. I just don’t know.” The headline said it all.
It was an honest and fair review, I thought, a piece that balanced my childhood fandom of the young Feldman with my bafflement at his adulthood reinvention as a musical frontman and “mentor” for a group of lingerie-clad women. Corey Feldman didn’t think the review was honest and fair, however. He read it, got mad at me, and blocked me on social media. So it goes (4 it).
Fast-forward nearly nine years. There’s a new documentary called Corey Feldman vs The World. It’s directed by Marcie Hume, and it’s available now for digital rent or purchase. Here’s the trailer:
In the first half of the film, cameras follow Feldman and the Angels on their inaugural 2017 tour of various sports bars and Irish pubs. And yes, at about 32 minutes in, as they chill and kvetch on their tour bus, they read my 2017 review and get super pissed.
They quote from my review. (Then-Angels music director Margot Lane: “Oh, I’m going after this guy!”) The documentary cuts to the text of my review. (Twice!) At one point, Corey Feldman says, “Tell me he’s not working for the dark side.” (He’s talking about me.) Yikes.
I finally rented Corey Feldman vs The World last night, after weeks of people telling me about my review’s cameo. I imagined said review flashed by in a quick montage of similar reviews. But NOPE. It’s just our site, just my headline, and just my byline, all prominently featured and hanging out there in all their digital glory. Yikes again. (Strangely, Feldman mentions the “Milwaukee Gazette” and not Milwaukee Record before he goes off on it. Bullet dodged?)
A few things: Back in 2017, the thing that seemed to irk Feldman the most was that I mentioned (and linked to) a then-infamous Vice article about one of his birthday parties. (I won’t link to it now, Corey!) And sure enough, it’s the mention of that very same Vice piece that sets him off in the documentary.
“There’s a dark underworld of press. It’s the bottom-feeder media. It’s all the tabloids and they all work together. And Vice Magazine is the kingpin of all of that,” Feldman fumes in the doc. “So as soon as I see somebody go, ‘Oh, and I read the Vice story,’ with the link, you know immediately they’re part of it. Immediately! You guys are all linked together and you want to keep posting that same damn article to try and make me look like an ass!”
He then goes on about how the “dark media” are Satanists and cultists, and how he’s a “lightworker.” Damn. All because of that link!
Another thing: Incredibly, my other Corey Feldman review from 2017, “I saw Corey Feldman play the show of his life, knock his tooth out, and then look for his tooth,” does not make an appearance in the doc. Nor does my grainy video of that show, which, yep, shows Feldman knocking his tooth out on a microphone and a fan finding the tooth in the crowd. (In a story too dumb to recount, TMZ called me the next morning and my video appeared on their show. Hmm. Maybe Feldman is on to something about the “dark media” working together…)
A final thing: Corey Feldman vs The World is far from a wacky tour doc. The vaguely ginned-up reality show vibe of the first half gives way to a much darker and troubling portrait of Feldman in the second half. It becomes a film about fame, abuse, control, exploitation, and recovery. It becomes a film that’s more about the women in Feldman’s orbit that Feldman himself. It becomes a film that Feldman has since angrily denounced as a “so-called ‘documentary.'” The appearance of my “crappy review” (Feldman’s words) isn’t all that important.
When Corey Feldman vs The World was released in December, Margot Lane posted this message to Instagram: “I hope this film changes the narrative on what abuse can look like. Hurt people don’t just hurt others; sometimes they return to help others that are hurting. This time forever altered me. I had A LOT of work to do after those two tours but I channeled it in a positive outlet. I work now to help survivors and speak in seminars re: abuse. I assist survivors with finding necessary elements that include counseling, food, shelter, safety planning, and emergency transfers.”
I’ll let her have the final word here, other than to say that Corey Feldman vs The World is worth a watch, and that after watching it myself I’m glad my review pissed him off. Maybe. I don’t know. I just don’t know.
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