Has anyone else watched this delightfully whimsical, funny, riveting and profoundly poignant two-part documentary on Paul Reubens? It is GOOD.
Paul Reubens sat for 40 hours of interviews with the director Matt Wolf, never disclosing to the film crew that he was actively dying of cancer at the time. There is a ton of never-before-seen archival footage of Reubens' art school films, a million photographs, and priceless behind the scenes peeks into his love life, his foundational time with the Groundlings, and the seemingly random yet miraculous discovery of the character Pee Wee Herman, which would propel him to a level of bat-shit insane fame that one can never prepare for.
The staggering amount of revelations here is what happens when you know that you are dying and you are needing to set the record straight, on EVERYTHING.
The saddest part for me was how, in spite of having the support of his loving parents, Reubens still drew the firm conclusion that his sexual orientation would be the enemy of his success, and therefore the experience of intimate love itself became his enemy, in a way. Ouch.