I was warned: the poster read “Kevin Smith Presents.” In retrospect, that was all I needed to know about Steve James’s latest documentary, Reel Paradise. I was suspicious going into the premiere on account of the marquee, but the film’s distributor Wellspring boasts a track record few can take to task. Turns out their recent release of Jacques Audiard’s sorely vacant The Beat That My Heart Skipped, an unfortunate exception to that rule, indeed spoke of uglier things to come.

Reel Paradise is a film I’ve desperately tried to forget about. Though I remind myself of its inevitable fizzle time and again, it has come to represent an uncommon feeling in my life, when the struggles that independent fare face in our blockbuster society suddenly doesn’t seem so unreasonable. Paradise is indicative of a disease raging beneath the skin of that Hollywood refuse staining silver screens: a vacuous and self-serving independent cinema with the strength to render its very own culture inert, fostering the common estimation of independent films as “pretentious” and “as empty as blockbusters without the stars or action”; such is cinema addressed with roundabout, “good-enough, considering” critical coddling, that elicits its share of schadenfreude in yours truly when it meets a timely death. But sometimes it’s best just to forget.

The film’s premiere in downtown NYC was star-studded. Kevin Smith, filmmaker Steve James, and the family around whom the film revolves (that of Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes author, producer’s rep and creator of IFC's Split Screen, John Pierson) were all on hand to introduce it. Following a brief introduction by former Wellspring head Ryan Werner, a modest and appropriate, if anxious, welcome to the film and its representatives, Kevin Smith took the mike and an obvious cheap shot without a single knowing glance between himself and Werner that might’ve lessened the sting: “Well, that’s a tough act to follow.” The packed Varick St. theater couldn’t get enough, as indie-demagogue Smith, cloaked in just-a-dude-from-Jersey oversized sports regalia, went on to comment—without a word’s insight on Reel Paradise’s genesis—on how the original footage he received from James amounted to 16 hours of Pierson and his wife fucking. Next up, Steve James, estimable director of Hoop Dreams, looked simply apologetic. Though he spoke with muted excitement of the opportunity to film Pierson’s family during the last month of their stay on the remote Fijian island of Taveuni, he held himself as one would expect a self-critical filmmaker might when presenting a work by which he himself was underwhelmed. Finally, clear-cut star of the show John Pierson grabbed the mike, eager to offer his retort to Smith’s “fucking” comment. It suddenly felt as it we were all sitting in a gymnasium gearing up to watch the latest film club video starring with the resident class clowns, and for what it’s worth, I already had the sick sense that I shouldn’t have skipped study hall for this.

Reel Paradise documents the final month of John Pierson’s year-long mission to show films to the locals on a remote third-world island that houses the 180 Meridian movie theater, for the island’s residents of Indian decent. Pierson transplanted his family of three—wife Janet, 16-year-old daughter Georgia, and 13-year-old son Wyat —to the tiny Fijian island from New York, and the only one really happy about seems to be father, driven as he is by some imbecilic hauteur to present X2, Juwanna Man, and Jackass: the Movie to the island. James captures the trials and tribulations of the Pierson family’s sojourn as they are robbed, as young Georgia Pierson seethes with teenage angst, as John struggles to get a reliable projectionist, as the youngest in the family repeatedly reminds his father he’s an idiot in the funniest and most poignant moments. And that’s about it, unless you care about this guy’s mission in something other than an ain’t-it-cool-damn-it’s-like-an-IFC-Osbournes sense and recognize Reel Paradise as a rather ugly document of American cinephilia settling on foreign soil with the same unwarranted bravado that accompanies more obviously importuning exports. That is, if you see it for what it really is—or, more importantly—what it could have been. What harm can a man with a movie projector really cause? Not much. But could he have offered something worthwile to Taveuni, and consequently, to us?

The premise is simple enough. Let’s take a look at the man and the movies. John Pierson arrived at the island with one thing in mind: He wanted to show free movies to the residents, many of whom had never seen a film before. He reprogrammed the Meridian, tracked down a couple of projectionists who knew how to operate the outdated machine, and imported films from the sole distributor in Fiji to show on a regular basis to anyone who wanted to come. James is only able to show us a smattering of Pierson’s selection, but the Reel Paradise website, which offers that “John (Pierson) carries on the theater’s tradition of showing a wide range of American, British and Hindi films,” also contains the list of films screened at his Free Movie nights. Here goes: 28 Days Later, 8 Mile, Accidental Spy, The (w/ Jackie Chan), Ali, Apocalypse Now Redux, Austin Powers in Goldmember, Baby Boy, Bad Company, Bend It Like Beckham, Black Hawk Down, The Bourne Identity, Bringing Down The House, Catch Me If You Can, Chicago, The Core, Cradle 2 The Grave, Crossroads, Darkness Falls, Devdas (India), Die Another Day, Don't Say A Word, Drunken Master II, E.T., Enough, The Fast and the Furious, Gangs of New York, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, The Hot Chick, Humraaz (India), Ice Age, Insomnia, Jackass, Johnny English, Juwanna Mann, Kaante (India), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (India), Lagaan (India), Like Mike, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Maid in Manhattan, The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, Men In Black II, Mohabbatein (India), Monsters Inc, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, National Security, Nurse Is Worse (Three Stooges), Ocean’s 11, Panic Room, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Rock Star, The Scorpion King, Shanghai Knights, Signs, Some More of Samoa (Three Stooges), Sorority Boys, Spider-Man, Spy Kids, Steamboat Bill Jr., Stuart Little 2, The One (w/ Jet Li), Training Day, The Tuxedo, Two Weeks Notice, Undercover Brother, X-2, XXX.

In reading the titles one by one, a sense of the magnitude of filmic mediocrity here becomes overwhelmingly apparent, along with a few other things — namely, whether or not this list in fact presents “a wide range of American, British and Hindi films.” I count six Hindi films and approximately the same number of British films if you include Goldmember and the Harry Potter films on account of the fact they include people who speak with British accents. Good thing he threw in some actual British fare like Johnny English, so Taveuni’s locals could get a real sense of the English. As far as the American reps go, I don’t think much can be said except the following: Reel Paradise begins with a long, loving look at the life of John Pierson in all his independent glory. In fact, John Pierson is so indie that he actually got married at the Film Forum. No joke. He then went on to live the dream, backing Spike Lee, Michael Moore, and (of course) Kevin Smith as a producer’s rep, wrote that hit book, Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, subtitled A Guided Tour Across a Decade of American Independent Cinema, then hosted his own show on IFC called Split-Screen. Doesn’t get much more indie than that. So what the fuck are Crossroads, The Fast and the Furious, The Hot Chick, Sorority Boys et al. doing on that list, and is it objectionable that someone with the power, opportunity, and supposed wherewithal to bring legitimately interesting and relevant films to this island opted for the easy way out?

I’m not proposing he present a Brakhage retrospective in hopes of spreading the endless joys of hand-painted avant-garde cinema to Fijians. The suggestion is thus: open an abandoned theater to fresh eyes and present them with an actual range of cinema. What a film of interest Reel Paradise might’ve been had Pierson actually brought some cinema of import, some of the American independents he supposedly loves, some politically charged cinema the residents of Taveuni could relate to, respond to and explore. There seems to be an incredible opportunity lost here. An island of eager communities races to the cinema for free films and the best he can muster is an ode his own nostalgia, Steamboat Bill.

Oh, the novelty of it all. It does start out warmhearted enough. It’s wonderful to see the children laughing in the aisles, and there is definitely something to be said for making an audience smile when it has spent the day battling poverty, but that seems hardly sufficient for someone ostensibly so committed to a cinema which represents an alternative to J-Lo taking it to the man in Enough. At least he lets the kids take the cardboard standee home at the end of it all. One can only hope they decided to use the materials as fire fuel.

Appropriately, Pierson’s few objectives that veer into the realm of semi-political and are only barely considered by James on camera, stray into dubious territory. Pierson sets the start time of his films at 7:30 to compete with 7:00 Mass because he doesn’t like the burgeoning Catholicism he feels has laced local culture with a strain of capitalism. Redoubtably brash, he combats what he perceives as a cultural defect by “making them choose” between church services and nice slice of Jackass. For obvious reasons, church officials aren’t so happy with Pierson, but the battle—from the American’s side—seems so hollow and ignorantly apolitical, it’s difficult to empathize. In fact, it’s difficult not to want to run from the theater in utter embarrassment.

But the antics keep you there. Watching Georgia Pierson spite her parents as rumors of Fijian boyfriends shock and appall, seeing young Wyatt make friends in the schoolyard­familial dysfunction and relative breakthroughs abound, just as they do on your local cable network’s reality programming night after night.

I’m afraid little more than that really needs to be said about this film, so I’ll stop right there.

As the lights came up and the post-premiere Q&A began as the sound of cordial applause began to die down, the family Pierson and Steve James were faced with a standard quiver of less-than-probing questions fired from the amiably-amused audience one by one. Did you play for the camera? (To Georgia Pierson) Did you really get with all the Fijian dudes? Did you play for the camera? “We already answered that.”

Reel Paradise seems symptomatic of a Kevin Smith culture we should hope to avoid: a cinema defined by a quirk and otherness that’s not so other at all. The pure paradox John Pierson brings to the screen with every projection of Hollywood hoopla on that tiny Fijian island says it all. Or maybe it was the look on Steve James’ face through that Q&A, as questions indicating the reality TV syndrome had somehow infected his own cinema registered as sadness in his eyes and a reluctance to take the microphone. Maybe he feared being identified as a conspirator.