On December 10, 7x7 and the SF Arts Fund cohosted the world premiere of a documentary called The Entrepreneur, the story of Malcolm Bricklin—the man who brought both the Yugo and the Subaru to America—as seen through his four-year quest (ultimately thwarted) to introduce a stylish, low-cost Chinese car called the Chery to the US market.
Sounds a bit dry, doesn’t it? And maybe it might have been, if a) the subject hadn’t been the very model of a modern American dreamer and b) if the filmmakers hadn’t included Malcolm’s son Jonathan, from, as Bricklin said in his pre-screening remarks, “my third marriage.” (Jonathan then corrected him: “Um, second wife, Malcolm.”)
As a result, the film is fascinating, and hilarious. In some ways, it’s the inverse of Michael Moore’s classic Roger & Me: instead of tracking the doldrums of a great American company, it follows a man trying to launch the next generation of cars. And Jonathan didn’t have to stalk his quarry: Malcolm Bricklin insisted that the crew have total access to anything they wanted to shoot. Twelve hundred hours of footage later, we’ve got The Entrepreneur.
One interesting postscript: The next day, a local blogger posted an interview in which Bricklin tells him that he (Bricklin) had that day been offered—and had turned down—the post of Obama’s “car czar”…
- Wine Country
- Holiday Gift Guide
- Holiday Recipes
- Events + Openings
- Workouts + Wellness
- Culinary Road Trip
- Community + Activism
- Cooking Videos
- COVID-19
- LGBTQ Pride
- Art + Design
- popular
- Test
- San Francisco
- East Bay
- Oakland
- Marin
- Silicon Valley
- Tahoe
- Secret Recipe
- Foodie Agenda
- Drink Here Now
- The Big Eat
- Play
- Tech
- Weddings
- Top Stories
- From Our Partners
- Property Porn
- Apartment Porn
- Brunch Topics
- Cannabis Insider
- Weekend Guide
- Monthly Agenda
- The Sunday Read
- Neighborhood Guide
- Best of San Francisco
- Most Popular
- Travel
- Dining + Restaurants
- Style Council 2016
- Cannabis
- 7x7 Hot 20
- 7x7 Cannabis Guide
- Bay Area Wellness Guide
- Shop Talk
- Music + Concerts
- Bay Area News
- News + Politics
- Restaurant Review
- Made in the Bay Area
- Style Council 2017
- Humor
- Manually populated
- Right Rail Most Read
- Sports
By
Related Articles