I Like Killing Flies Reviews
Laramie Movie Scope
Viewers will either like it, as I did, or hate it, based on Kenny Shopsin's abrasive, but fascinating personality.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
TheMovieChicks.com
The story is okay and at times quite entertaining, but it does not make for a compelling drama that you have to rush out and see.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
The food looks scrumptious and the video is carried along through the strength of the idiosyncratic and blustery chef.
Full Review
| Original Score: A
Top CriticIt celebrates individuality, hidden artistry, uncelebrated brilliance and the essence of the American spirit and is a general gas to watch.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
The security-camera visuals and intrusive button microphone jutting into the frame give the movie an appealing fly-on-the-wall quality, successfully capturing the old Shopsin's experience for posterity.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Hollywood Report Card
As oddly direct and quirky as its title. Its audio track would play great on "This American Life."
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
The central figure in this exuberant documentary, a committed Freudian who probably would've tossed Freud himself out had he looked at him sideways, spouts one gem after another.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/4
Capital Times (Madison, WI)
You can't go home again, the film reminds us, and you can never eat the same meal twice. At least not at Shopsin's.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Entertainment Insiders
Shopsin is a character. He's loud, lewd and fat, speaks his mind on just about every subject known to man, and is beloved by his regular customers, who follow him to his new digs.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
... an unabashedly home-cooked homage to New York eccentricity.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Spirituality and Practice
A colorful and offbeat documentary about Kenny Shopsin, a cook, entrepreneur, and raconteur in a popular Greenwich Village restaurant.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
TV Guide's Movie Guide
[Shopsin is] a small piece of New York history, and Mahurin's film is the portrait he deserves: small, noisy and oddly engaging beneath the bluster.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Reel.com
It is a joy of a movie. But watching it hungry -- at least for those of us outside New York, or those New Yorkers who Kenny refuses to serve -- only creates an appetite that cannot possibly be satisfied.
| Original Score: 3/4
An irresistible no-budget documentary.
| Original Score: 3/4
Anyone who laments the loss of an older, grittier New York ought to adore this affectionate portrait of Greenwich Village restaurant owner Kenny Shopsin.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
A quick-sketch portrait of Kenny Shopsin, of the legendary or notorious, depending on your experience, Greenwich Village eatery that bears his name.
| Original Score: 3/5
The central subject is such a volatile, complex eccentric and his establishment is such a uniquely New York institution that the charming character study should land quality cable slots.
It's a rough-hewn film, more interesting, probably, to those who've actually made it through a meal there, but fun and maybe even inspiring.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Slant Magazine
Matt Mahurin's I Like Killing Flies utilizes extreme close-ups (sometimes with microphones in clear view) to create an appealingly informal aesthetic of proximity.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
