Eleven Minutes

Documentary Feature
D: Rob Tate and Michael Selditch.

Oh, Jay, baby, we’ve missed you. Season five of Project Runway – Bravo’s genre-defining reality show that pits aspiring fashion designers against one another – has thus far been a lackluster one, full of wrongheaded cuts and personality-deficient contestants. That’s why it’s such a welcome relief to be back in the ever-bitchy company of season one winner Jay McCarroll. This all-access documentary charts McCarroll’s yearlong process of preparing his Bryant Park launch, from design to promotion to 11th-hour crises, all to produce the title’s “11 minutes” of runway glory. The camera makes little effort at objectivity – this is a pro-Jay project through and through – and there is something rather laughable in McCarroll’s insistence that he wants to pull away from his reality-show roots … while he’s being filmed for a documentary that might as well be called Eleven Minutes: The All-Jay-All-the-Time Show – but it’s a show I’d happily tune in to, for sure.

Thursday, Sept. 4, 5pm

This article appears in August 29 • 2008.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...