I went to see "Tyson," the documentary about aging supermodel and VH1's 1995 man of the year Tyson Beckford-oh wait, no, it was about the boxer Mike Tyson-because you and A. O. Scott told me to. This is a terrible movie, and I hate you and A. O. Scott.

Kidding, I don't hate Tony Scott, even though apparently he hates me because he thinks I am another writer, who is named Josh Stein, who once wrote something nasty about him on Gawker while I was on vacation and not at all there or at all being Josh Stein. Which leads one, or at least me, to believe that Tony Scott doesn't understand the Internet, which leads me to question his larger understanding of textual strategies (ha, it is the early 90s up in here!) and authorship and the shapes of functional things overall. Therefore I question his understanding of film sometimes, particularly in this case, because, though he notes that "Tyson" is "not an entirely trustworthy movie," he still thinks it is "profoundly honest."

Anyone who has been to at least one mandatory bad 12-step meeting or prison visit has seen this sort of not-really profound honesty before. It's Mike Tyson, the subject and also a producer of the film, sitting on his couch, in what appears to be one of the two actual interviews conducted with the subject of the film, spewing his guts out. (The third view of Tyson in the film is of him gazing pensively into the Pacific in golden California beach lighting, which, whatever, WHY.) The interviews were supposedly conducted over the course of a week, though Tyson is in the same shirt and pose for the vast majority of the footage-and this week was while Tyson was in rehab, apparently, a strange fact which makes everything make less sense. Rehab for what? For why?

This first-person telling of Tyson's life, even though in this case it originates from him, is already familiar. It is the story of his life presented in his rape trial, and reproduced by the press.

From the account of the trial coverage in "Social Meanings of News," by Daniel Allen Berkowitz, a professor at the University of Iowa:

The second primary depiction of Tyson in the press portrayed a victim. Emphasizing the hard poverty of his childhood in Brooklyn, this portrayal recounted Tyson's orphaned life on the streets, his lengthy childhood criminal record, and his tenure at an upstate reform school.... Other reports, while not absolving Tyson of culpability, placed blame for Tyson's fall on a larger system of entitlement that society grans to athletes....

This was Tyson's narrative, presented entirely on his own. And it was fascinating, often, to hear him talk about himself! Sort of like a fun homeless person, waiting 90 minutes for a bus. He is quite a strange mammal so that is interesting to listen to.

The woman sitting next to me walked out shortly after Tyson glossed over his rape conviction (though maybe she just had to pee for 45 minutes and needed to take her bag and boyfriend with her and not come back?) and if it were really the early 90s I probably would have too. Maybe, it is possible, as Tyson says, that he did not rape a teenage Desiree Washington! And also maybe he did not beat his first wife! Maybe we don't need to understand how a professional fighter would suddenly be so loony as to try to bite off an opponent's ear twice, instead of finding some other way to deal with being head-butted. How would we know? This is an unusual problem for a documentary, in that we don't learn the truth about anything. Maybe I know less about Mike Tyson than I did before.

It may be misplaced interest, but for me the most-fascinating unanswered questions have to do with money. Tyson has apparently spent it all, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, more than once. How did he both make it and spend it?

The film's biggest mistake, though, is to proceed through Tyson's life chronologically. Somewhere at the end, we learn that he has had six children. And we meet his ex-wife (Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele's sister!) who is casually presented as the mother of his children, even though in real life she is only the mother of two of them.

Four more came from elsewhere. Who knows?