THE BEST STORIES HAPPEN WHEN YOU’RE NOT LOOKING FOR THEM

At least, as we all now know, that’s what happened when Andrew Jarecki started documenting the worklife of one of NYC’s most popular childrens party clowns and wound up with the remarkable documentary Capturing the Friedmans, an Oscar caliber film that unfortunately for it came out the same year as The Fog of War. If you didn’t see it in the theater and you never rented the DVD, tonight is your first chance to make up for those mistakes as it will premiere on HBO at 9 PM. Really … don’t miss it. And if you’re curious about David Friedman’s life as a clown — the film that started it all — Jarecki completed it as a 20-minute short, has called it Just a Clown, and it airs tomorrow night at 7:30 PM, also on HBO. Just don’t expect any connection to the feature-length documentary in the short. It’s title is Just a Clown, and a clown is all it’s about.