I decided to give The Automat documentary a try not because I’m fascinated by automats but because I was fascinated by why anyone would make a documentary about automats. And why Mel Brooks was the face of the marketing. Is this a documentary about funny automats? Are automats funny? Does anyone reading this know what an automat even is?

An automat, in case you want to know, was an apparently super popular type of diner in the early 20th century. You face a cornucopia of windowed doors, each with a food inside it. You feed the door a nickel and take the food. Behind the scenes, chefs prepare new foods and add them to the machine. Voila… an apparently very popular way to get some grub, mainly in New York and Philadelphia.

I was inclined to be curious about whether these diners were really big enough to warrant this documentary. And the documentarians knew their subject matter was obscure and odd since their interviewees also ask that question or are surprised that a younger person even knows what an automat is.

Is this a good documentary about a dead business? Yeah, it’s fine. I learned something and some of the old timey footage was interesting (plus the one clip of an automat being operated by someone in an MTV shirt). I’m not sure it was a good use of my time or that a similar documentary might exist on YouTube. But it was on HBO Max which I already pay for so I only had to lose about an hour and fifteen minutes of my life. Yeah, it’s alright… especially if you have a burning desire to truly understand impersonal, mechanical restaurants. And who doesn’t?

Score: 76