New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 5/21/13

Today’s releases feature a plethora of titles that I missed when they were released theatrically early this year. 

First up, former California Govenor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first starring role in a decade (THE EXPENDABLES movies? Consider those cameos.), Kim Ji-woon’s THE LAST STAND comes out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The action flick about Schwarzenegger as a small town Sherriff battling a Mexican drug lord, which looks like it could possibly be big dumb fun, comes with a smattering of Special Features including a nearly half hour featurette entitled “Not In My Town: Making THE LAST STAND,” a few shorter featurettes (“Cornfield Chaos: Scene Breakdown,” “The Dinkum Firearm & Historic Weaponry Museum Tour”), Actor-Cam Anarchy: with Johnny Knoxville and Jaimie Alexander, and over 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes.

Another I missed, and barely noticed the existence of, Richard LaGravenese’s TWILIGHT-wannabe BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, starring Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert, hits the shelves in a double disc Blu ray package and in a single disc DVD. Special Features a 24-minute collection of behind-the-scenes Featurettes, 8 minutes of deleted scenes, trailers, and a TV spot. I seriously doubt I’ll be queuing this up.

A few films I’m actually interested also drop on Blu ray and DVD today: Fisher Stevens’ STAND UP GUYS and Steven Soderbergh’s SIDE EFFECTS. 

Available in 1-disc Blu ray and DVD editions, STAND UP GUYS stars the awesome trio of Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin as old school gangsters who get together to pull off one last job. Sure, it sounds clichéd as Hell, but I heard good things here and there and will likely give it a whirl this week. Stevens provides a director’s commentary, and other extras include a few featurettes, and a few minutes of deleted scenes. 

Soderbergh’s psychological thriller SIDE EFFECTS, available in a double disc Blu ray set or a single disc DVD package, once said to be one of the director’s final projects before retiring (he’s since said he’s only taking a film-making sabbatical), stars Rooney Mara, Jude Law, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Channing Tatum in a tale about a young woman (Mara) who gets prescribed an experimental new medication called Ablixa. Special Features are pretty paltry: a 3 minute behind the scenes featurette, and a couple minutes of fake commercials for the fictional drugs depicted in the film. 

True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season, right in time for the upcoming 6th season of the wildly popular HBO series (premiering on June 16th) is also out today in a spiffy (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) box set. I’ve not been a regular view of the show before, but the fine folks at HBO sent me a review copy of the nicely packaged season so I’ve been making my way through it. I usually like to watch shows from the very beginning, but I’ve gathered bits and pieces about what’s been going on in the Southern sometimes ultra-trashy world of Sookie Stackhouse, played with punchy energy by Anna Paquin. Since I don’t know all the back stories, and my grasp on the mythology is far from formed, I can get a bit lost, but the show moves fast and has a lot of sordid sex scenes so it’s pretty damn watchable. 

5 commentaries featuring cast and crew members are included, as are such extras as something called “advanced viewing mode,” in which gives viewers the options of getting 4 different angles on each episode along with trivia, production notes, character bios, and histories (hmm, maybe that’ll help me get up to date). There’s also an “Autopsy” of episode Six “Hopeless,” “Authority Confessionals,” and a few more featurettes.

Also from HBO, a film I reviewed when it premiered on the premium cable channel last November, Brett Morgen’s Rolling Stones documentary CROSSFIRE HURRICANE is now out in single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. The doc, which I considered a “purposeful primer of their formative years” although it adds little new for long-time fans, is enhanced by bonus material made up of of live and TV performances from the mid ‘60s (9 songs in all), an interview with director Morgen, and the theatrical trailer.

Notable retro-tinged releases today are PBS’s American Masters documentary about the legendary comic actor/writer/director Mel Brooks (Robert Trachtenberg's “Mel Brooks: Make A Noise”), the Criterion Collection edition of Haskell Wexler’s 1969 cult classic MEDIUM COOL, and Warner Bros. celebrates the 30th anniversary of NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION with a new special edition Blu ray (also 1997’s VEGAS VACATION, which wasn’t from National Lampoon incidentally, makes its Blu ray debut today).

Paul Borghese’s gritty crime drama ONCE UPON A TIME IN BROOKLYN, starring Armand Assante William DeMeo, Cathy Moriarty, and Ice T comes out on DVD today. Its plot sounds a bit like STAND UP GUYS – guy gets out of prison and gets back into illegal activities – but I bet that there’s a distinctly different tone happening. Director’s commentary, interview with Borghese and DeMeo, and deleted scenes. 

Lastly, a few horror titles drop on DVD this week: H.P. LOVECRAFT’S COOL AIR, directed by Albert Pyun is out now only on DVD with no Special Features other than a trailer gallery, and AFTER DARK ORIGINALS: DARK CIRCLES, the full length directorial debut of Paul Soter, one of the Broken Lizard comedy team who brought you SUPER TROOPERS and CLUB DREAD. Soter appears with actor Johnathon Schaech, and blogger Ryan Turek on an audio commentary, and the sole other extra is a DARK CIRCLES behind-the-scenes featurette.

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NOT FADE AWAY: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now opening exclusively in the Triangle area at Crossroads 20 in Cary:

NOT FADE AWAY (Dir. David Chase, 2012)

David Chase’s debut as director, and first project since his seminal HBO show The Sopranos, is a tribute to the era in which the British Invasion led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones hit America hard.

It was a time when tons of teenagers dreamed of forming a rock band that would have huge hit singles, tour the world, and be chased by crowds of adoring girls. This is the story of a New Jersey teenager (John Magaro), getting together with his friends to reach for that dream, but they never make it big. As a young female narrator (Meg Guzulescu, who plays Magaro’s sister), who pops up very sparingly, says: “Like most bands, you've never heard of them.”

Although Chase opens the film with the famous meeting of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Dominic Sheerwood and Alfie Stewart) on a London train chatting about Chicago blues records, his is a personal film about the people listening who could only fantasize about having that iconic power; the impressionable teens watching life changing TV appearances of their heroes (there are several interspersed bits of black and white footage shown full screen including the legendary appearance of the Stones on the ABC variety show The Hollywood Palace in which they were mocked by host Dean Martin).

Our young protagonist, Magaro is obsessed with the revolutionary rock of the times. His change of wardrobe and hairstyle in the span of the 4-5 years this film covers makes him look more and more like Bob Dylan, something his sullen demeanor also calls attention to.

Magaro becomes the drummer for the never really named band (the soundtrack lists them as The Twylight Zones but that’s never made clear in the film), which also includes Will Brill and Jack Huston. At one early gig at a party, Magaro takes over on lead vocal for the Stones’ “Time is on My Side,” and catches the eye of Bella Hethcote as a girl he’d been crushing on since high school. Some conflict arises when Magaro suggests that he would sing one of their songs better than Huston, and before long he’s the lead vocalist and Huston is out.

Back on the homefront, the generation gap widens as Magaro’s father (Chase’s Sopranos star James Gandolfini) disapproves greatly of his son’s rock ‘n roll lifestyle in kitchen-set scenes that remind me of the incredibly touching, rambling monologues Bruce Springsteen would deliver between songs onstage in the ‘80s about his troubled relationship with his father back during the same period this film takes place.

Springsteen is an apt analogy as E Street Band member (and another Sopranos connection) Steve Van Zandt is executive produced, supervised the soundtrack, and wrote one of the band’s few originals “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre,” as well as played on it, and their other songs too.

The Stones dominate the soundtrack, but Chase and Van Sandt touch on a lot of crucial music including old blues artists like Lead Belly, Bo Diddley, and Robert Johnson, mixed with ‘60s pop like the Small Faces, the Moody Blues, and the Left Banke. Of course, the Beatles and Dylan can’t help but pop up.

Director/screenwriter Chase sets a tone for many scenes that can make it easy to pinpoint what’s happening next, and there are one too point plot-points that never add up (Gandolfini reveals he has cancer at one point but nothing really comes from it), but the naturalistic dialogue along with the moody engulfing atmosphere, enhanced grandly by the music, made me feel like I was in these peoples’ uncertain world.

Seeing Magaro’s band find their footing practicing in the basement, gigging at parties, and recording demos at a studio is affecting even when you know they’re never going to make it. A rude awakening for the band comes in the form of Brad Garrett as a New York music business bigwig who tells them that they’re not ready; that they need to pay their dues by playing clubs full-time for 6 months.

If you’ve even been in a band, or known people in a band, or if you are into bands at all, then you’re likely to “get” this movie.

Otherwise your reaction might be like Magaro’s when going with his girlfriend Hethcoteto to see Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 pop art classic BLOW UP: “What kind of movie is this? Nothing happens.”

Director/screenwriter Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY, which is a lifted title from a '50s Buddy Holly classic that has been countlessly covered, doesn’t overly romanticize the era, it just simply conveys the excitement mixed with confusion with being so swept up in the changing times that one can, like Magaro hitchhiking down L.A.'s Sunset Strip at midnight at the film’s end, find their lives blowing in the wind.

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New HBO Rolling Stones Doc Celebrates 50th Anniversary But More Their Bad Boy Image

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE (Dir. Brett Morgen, 2012)

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, the Rolling Stones have come out of retirement to release a few new singles (“Doom and Gloom,” and “One More Shot”), perform some surprise club shows leading up to a major tour next year, and have taken part in the new retrospective documentary, CROSSFIRE HURRICANE, which premieres on HBO Thursday night, November 15th.

Directed by Brett Morgen, best known for co-directing the acclaimed 2002 bio-doc THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE, about mega-producer Robert Evans, the film covers the early ‘60s to late ‘70s rise of England’s oldest hit-makers, featuring new audio-only interviews of band members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Ron Wood, Bill Wyman, and Mick Taylor.

The doc packs a lot into its one hour and forty plus minute running time, including healthy chunks of such classics as “Street Fighting Man,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction),” “Sympathy For The Devil,” and “Honky Tonk Women,” mostly smoothly mixing an overview of their hits into the band’s layered narrative without overly cluttering it.

In one funny mid ‘60s TV clip, a straight-laced news commentator criticizes the raunchy rock group for their “carefully calculated air of ‘blow you, Jack!” This speaks volumes as the doc itself strongly appears to be a carefully calculated attempt to re-inforce the Stones’ legendary bad boy image right in time for their reunion.

There is much talk about how they were set-up by their shrewd manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham to be the anti-Beatles, the nasty bad boy antithesis to the fab four’s seemingly squeaky clean image, with a lot of back stage decadence displayed in the footage including many shots of Stones’ members drinking every bit of available liquor there is. 

It’s like the Stones (most of who produced or executive produced this doc) are saying: ‘We know we’re old mainstream geezers now, but back in the day we were quite dangerous. We had tons of sex, drugs and booze along with our kick ass rock ‘n roll, and even spent time behind bars. We just want to remind you of all that.’

CROSSFIRE HURRICANE, which takes its title from a lyric in “Jumping Jack Flash,” only covers up to the Stones’ ‘1978 album “Some Girls,” though there is brief footage from Hal Ashby’s live concert film LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER (shot in 1981, released in ’83), so there’s a lot of story left to be told, but the film does ideally cover the band’s most vital eras. 

Since those eras have been already very well covered, Morgan’s doc often feels like a hodgepodge of clips from the many other Stones documentaries, almost resembling a greatest hits of the best bits from their filmography.

There’s cool black and white footage of Mick and Keith working out “Sitting on a Fence” from the newly restored and released doc CHARLIE IS MY DARLING (shot on their tour of Ireland in 1965), there’s an excerpt of the Stones playing in Hyde Park after the death of Brian Jones from THE STONES IN THE PARK (1969), there’s the great gritty film of the band recording in Keith’s basement at Villa Nellcôte in France that appeared in the 2010 doc STONES IN EXILE, there’s the shocking moment of murder at Altamont captured in the Maysles brothers’ essential GIMME SHELTER (1970), and so on.

Some of the same archival footage has also been used in Martin Scorsese’s SHINE A LIGHT (2008), from which Morgen also borrows a performance of “All Down The Line” for the end credits (the most recent film of the Stones in this doc).

So if you’re a big Stones fan, you are likely to have already seen a large percentage of this stuff, but if you’re a newcomer to this material, it functions as an purposeful primer of their formative years. 

As a longtime fan myself, I learned precious little I didn’t know before, but enjoyed a few fresh insights from the new interviews like when Richards remarks “The essence of Jagger and Richards together, I suppose would be ‘Midnight Rambler.’ Anybody could’ve written any of our songs, but I don’t think anyone could’ve written ‘Midnight Rambler’ other than Mick and Me.”

Or drummer Charlie Watt's assessment that guitarist Ron Wood, who replaced Mick Taylor in the mid '70s, became “the link between the two strong egos (Jagger and Richards), and the two light ones (himself and Wyman).”

Trying to sum up the group’s appeal, the late Brian Jones, looking back on their ‘65 breakthrough just a year later, tells a reporter that they had “the right type of sound, and the right visual image the kids of the world wanted at the time.”

Fifty years may have passed, and the Stones haven’t had that bad boy image for a long-ass time, but when the publicity machine kicks in with this doc, their new ‘best of’ 3 CD compilation (“GRRR!”) dropping this week, and their looming 2013 tour, surely to be one of the biggest grossing tours ever, it will again be inescapable that they are still hugely wanted by the now over-aged kids of the world.

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DVD Review: THE T.A.M.I SHOW (1964)

THE T.A.M.I. SHOW

(Dir. Steve Binder, 1964)

This time capsule of a concert film finally gets a proper DVD release and that's a great thing because it's a joy from start to finish. If you happen to like '60s rock, pop, and soul that is.

The Teenage Awards Music International show featured a mighty roster of the days biggest acts including Chuck Berry, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Lesley Gore, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and The Rolling Stones filmed live in glorious black and white at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in 1964.

Era heart throbs Jan and Dean hosted the event and also performed. It's major proof that the teens at the time screamed at more than just The Beatles. The fact that they scream throughout the entirety of this concert can be as endearing as often as it's annoying. They even scream at the third tier bands: Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Barbarians and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas.

But the music, most of it instantly recognizable if you've ever listened to oldies radio, shines through the squealing as well as the cheesy presentation featuring TV variety show style sets and go-go dancers constantly bopping behind most of the acts.

Most amusingly, one of those go-go dancers was a 17 year old Teri Garr (pictured above between the Supremes) who can be seen dancing her ass off almost the whole show. She's given plenty to shake to when James Brown hits the stage.

Backed by the Famous Flames, Brown steals the show out from everybody with a ferocious 5 song set in which an incendiary "Please Please Please" featuring his patented cape routine is the shows undeniable highlight. The Rolling Stones almost backed out after learning they were going to follow Brown. Maybe they should have; their set is fine but a bit lacking in fire. The band responsible for the classic album Aftermath come off a bit like an afterthought here.

However, by the time the Stones get to "It's All Over Now" a good deal of their power gets restored. It's all the same to the shrieking audience though, they scream as loud as ever right to the end.

Bonus Features: This digitally remastered film comes with a smattering of extras including several radio spots and an informative commentary by director Steve Binder assisted by music historian Don Waller. Director John Landis (ANIMAL HOUSE, THE BLUES BROTHERS, THREE AMIGOS), who attended the show as a teenager and said that the Rolling Stones were boring following Brown, also puts in a sprightly commentary on the trailer.


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GONZO: Fawning & Loafing On The Bio-Doc Trail

GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON (Dir. Alex Gibney, 2008)




Every book on my shelf has a different definition of the word “Gonzo”; it’s a style of journalism, it’s an ethic - when I was a kid it was a Muppet. The basic meaning, as best I can gather, is when a commentator, reporter et al. is so intensely immersed in their story that they become part of it. 


The alternate meanings can be summed as an ‘in your face’ fact and fiction blurred aesthetic where anything goes. Despite Spanish or Italian roots (again depends on what book you read) the term became part of the popular lexicon in the introduction of an article by Hunter S. Thompson in 1970. Thompson who by then already had a reputation as an gun-toting druggie “Freak Power” anarchist is the subject of this over reverant documentary by Oscar winning dierctor Alex Gibney (TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE).


Thompson spent much of the last 40 years in front of a camera when he wasn’t shooting up (in every possible way) so there is much fascinating footage to wade through with news reports about his Hell's Angels meddling, talk show appearances, and amatuer film of his campaign for Mayor of Aspen, Colorado making for a juicy narrative. 


Johnny Depp, who played the man in Terry Gilliam’s 1998 adaptation of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (which this film uses too many clips from), frames a number of segments with readings from Thompson’s work but since that device drops and he isn’t heard from throughout lengthy chunks of the film he can’t really be considered a narrator though he’s credited as such. 


Then there’s the music - with some of the most obvious 60’s songs employed to make easy points this has to go down as one of the least imaginative soundtracks for a period doc ever. I mean, how many times am I gonna have to see “All Along The Watchtower” * cut to war footage? Stones, Joplin, CCR, Lou Reed's “Walk On The Wild Side”; come on! Gibney makes a movie that feels like it was made by somebody whose never seen any 60’s or 70’s docs before. 


It’s also so not neccessary to go through the deaths and overused footage of MLK, RFK, and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon to get to the heart of Hunter S. Thompson but there it is and go through it again I guess we’re doomed to do forever. * To the films credit the version of “Watchtower” used is from Bob Dylan and The Band's live performance on “Before The Flood” (1974) not the incredibly done to death (movie-wise that is) Hendrix version. 


Concentrating mostly on Thompson’s early career and glossing over the rest since the 70’s to his death in 2005, GONZO does have its merits. There are interviews with the charming yet still smarmy asshole Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, former Nixon-aid turned Republican Presidential candidate now full-time Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan (who surprisingly has reams of insight), 1972 Democratic Presidential nominee George McGovern, and especially Thompson’s ex-wife Sandy Conklin Thompson (whose name is now Sondi Wright). 


There are many great anecdotes with Ralph Steadman's iconic splattered cartoons injecting the proceedings with some much needed rough edges. 


For the uninitiated this portrait may be an eye opening overview; to those well versed in the counterculture and the beginnings of the “new media” this may come off as an incomplete too respectful playing of Thompson’s greatest hits with very little new insight gleemed. 


In the end it’s just more than a bit disapointing that a film about the Gonzo mind-set and output of one of the most notorious and unruly writers of the last half century could be such a standard straight forward bio-doc; in other words so non-Gonzo. 


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Clash Frontman Joe Strummer Gets The Julien Temple Treatment With Great Rock Doc Results

“I need some feeling of some sort - hey, we’re all alive at the same time, at once, you know!” - Joe Strummer yelling at the US Festival crowd 5/28/83 

I sadly missed this film on its extremely brief theatrical run in my area but happily just viewed the newly released DVD so here’s my review:

JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN (Dir. Julien Temple, 2007)

Tracing Joe Strummer’s life from a “mouthy little git” to “punk rock warlord” (Strummer’s words) Julien Temple’s lively and loving documentary is full of insights and powerful ideology that render it immediately essential.

As the frontman for the seminal British punk rock band The Clash, Strummer was rawly outspoken, always passionate, and brutally honest so he’s the best one to tell his story and by way of BBC radio recordings of him as guest DJ and audio from many interviews over the course of his career - he does.

These archival Strummer soundbites are helped along by a bountiful bevy of talking head comments from such stars including Johnny Depp, Steve Buscemi, Bono, and John Cusack as well as those with a more personal connection - former bandmates, girlfriends, and family members who I wish were better identified.

That’s one of the only beefs I have with this project - we know who Matt Dillon or Bono are when they appear at a campfire shot to offer their takes on Strummer but without a name and caption many folks like girlfriend Palmolive (from the lesser known but still vital bands The Slits and The Raincoats) fly by with their context not properly placed *. 


Also would be nice to have concert dates and events better titled. Small quibbles though, the rest is rockumentary gold or at least rock doc crack. *


Luckily the DVD has an over an hour and a half of bonus extended interviews which does identify each participant and is also essential. A couple of the highlights: Angela Janklow tells of a hilarious chance meeting of Strummer and Monica Lewinsky & Martin Scorsese relays how Clash music fueled his inspiration making RAGING BULL and later GANGS OF NEW YORK. Born as John Mellor, the son of a British diplomat and a Scottish nurse, his family moved quite a bit during his childhood; living in Eygpt, Germany, and Mexico before John ended up at a boarding school in London. 


It was there that he was turned on to The Rolling Stones, learned to play the ukulele, and starting going by the name of “Woody” ostensibly because of an affection for Woody Guthrie. He went to art school with cartoonist aspirations (many of his drawings are sprightly animated and interspersed throughout) but music was his real calling and he was soon playing guitar in a band called the Vultures which didn’t last long. 


At the same time he toiled in such vacant career opportunities as carpet salesman and grave-digger. Because of his style of guitar playing he changed his name to Joe Strummer and angrily derided anybody who called him by another moniker. As it certainly was suspected the center piece here is Strummer’s years with, as the hyped phrase goes, the “only band that matters.”


Having disbanded another band - the popular pub rockers The 101ers, Strummer met guitarist Mick Jones and manager Bernie Rhoades. With bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes, and another guitarist Keith Levene they formed The Clash. 


They were immediately embraced by the blossoming British punk scene and signed to CBS within a year of their live debut (in 1976) with Chimes replaced by Topper Headon and Levene being axed. Great grainy footage abounds - most notably The Clash playing to a giant crowd of pogo-ing punksters at an Anti-Nazi League benefit. 


Their political themes, fueled by Strummer's leftist views, were not lost on their fans as Bono from the mega-band U2 pretentiously but accurately explains: “I never knew who the Sandinistas were or where Nicaraqua was, the lyrics of Joe Strummer were like an atlas; they opened up the world to me and other people who came from blank suburbia.”



“I couldn't believe we turned into the kind of people we were trying to destroy” Strummer laments as we see The Clash reap the rewards of success/excess.


Contrasting professional arena concert footage from the early 80's with the grimy black and white basement video of their early days of the same song illustrates beautifully his case: “we were part of the audience, part of the movement. 


Once it became thousands of miles removed from that I began to freak out.” Mick Jones final appearance was at the US Festival in 1983 (which again, is not properly identified) at which point Strummer, most likely way after the fact, describes the band as a “depleted force.”


The Clash carried on however with some replacement blokes but the glory was gone so yep, here comes death. The death of the band that is, Strummer had many years of soundtrack work, acting roles (he appeared with Buscemi in my favorite Jim Jarmusch film MYSTERY TRAIN, solo recordings, and powerful performances with his band the Mescaleros. 


As a former global punk superstar he struggled a bit: “You meet a 17 year old guy and he's never heard of The Clash; that's the moment my feet touch the ground again.” Strummer died of a congenital heart defect on December 22nd, 2002. 


Just weeks before he played with Mick Jones for the first time since 1983. It was an impromptu appearance with Jones getting on stage to join Strummer and the Mescaleros on the Clash classics “Bankrobber”, “White Riot”, and “London's Burning.”


The footage from that gig, albeit brief, adds enormously to the emotional last third of the documentary. 


Temple’s clever construction of the different strains of pop culture, even utilizing clips of ANIMAL FARM and the classic British flick IF.... to symbolize oppressive British society, is incredibly compelling from the before mentioned concert footage to even an appearance on South Park (1998). 


As both a enjoyable touching tribute for the long-time fan and a teaching-tool for the uninitiated, Julien Temple’s JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN is one of the best of its kind and a new addition to the definitive rocumentary checklist.

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Exile On Mean Street Part II - Shining A Light On Scorsese & The Stones Yet Again...

At the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year Mick Jagger made the joke before anybody else could: “I want you to know that SHINE A LIGHT is the only (Scorsese) film that 'Gimme Shelter' isn’t played in.” I had written before about Martin Scorsese's Stones obsession with “Gimme Shelter” singled out in Exile On Mean Street - Or Scorsese & The Stones Together Again (October 22nd, 2006). In that post I speculated about the proposed concert film/doc and how it may capture the definitive performance of “Gimme Shelter” - well alas, as Jagger quipped this is not to be. No matter - the prospect of America's greatest director taking on the greatest rock band in the world (just go with their own self generated hype on this will you?), in a ginormous IMAX feature no less, is enough to wipe away such pop culture pigeon-holing persnickety. So let's get on to the show:

SHINE A LIGHT (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2008)



The Rolling Stones are no strangers to being the cinematic subject of famously impulsive control-freak film makers. Jean-Luc Godard, The Maysles Brothers, and Hal Ashby have had their turns at capturing the legendary rockers on celluloid but now the British hitmakers have met their match with Martin Scorsese - not because he is a more of a meticulously-minded master director than those luminaries, but because he is more of a giddy hardcore fan. 


As the film begins in grainy black and white Scorsese is seen scurrying around trying to get the setlists for the 2 Stones shows at New York's Beacon Theater he is preparing to shoot, with 18 cameras * mind you, and comically getting the rock star brush-off from frontman Mick Jagger. 


This opening has a frenetic almost SPINAL TAP-ish quality to it but when the Stones hit the stage splashing into full color with the picture expanding to the full screen I was swept up into the cross-fire hurricane of the ferociously jolting “Jumpin' Jack Flash”. * Helmed by such cinematographers and behind the scenes A-listers as Robert Elswit, Robert Richardson, John Toll, Emmanuel Lubezki and Albert Maysles (GIMME SHELTER!) 


As the Glimmer Twins (the nickname and producing credit of Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards) and their mates tear through their classics (“Sympathy For The Devil”, “Brown Sugar”, “Start Me Up”, etc.) and a few obscurities for the faithful (like “Far Away Eyes” for one) Scorsese's cameras swoop down and around the band, barely ever pausing to rest lest anyone would get bored with a shot. Scorsese's scrupulous sense of timing and exciting effective editing rocks as hard as his subject material making this the best concert film since Jonathan Demme's STOP MAKING SENSE. 


It's awe-inspiring to watch Jagger conducting his fellow Stones, the back-up singers, the audience, and all the cameras into a riotous groove then drive it into a frenzy over and over again. The effect was so powerful and absorbing that I had to refrain myself from clapping at the end of several songs, having to remind myself I wasn't in the audience at the Beacon - I was just one of a handful of people at an IMAX theater in Raleigh.



The 2 shows (Oct. 29 and Nov. 1, 2006) this film was constructed from were star studded affairs - both onstage and in the audience. Former President Bill Clinton, whose 60th birthday was being celebrated by this charity benefit, introduces the band (which is fitting because he was called the first “Rock 'N Roll President”) and Bruce Willis can be seen but despite this Scorsese thankfully keeps audience shots at a minimum. 


What's more notable is the musical guest stars - blues legend Buddy Guy calmly appears to throw gas on an already raging fire by duetting with Jagger on Muddy Waters' “Champagne & Reefer” and a starstruck Jack White (from The White Stripes) joins the band for a infectious moving rendition of “Loving Cup”. Christina Aguilera helps bring out the raunch in the lusty “Live With Me” gyrating then grinding with Jagger while long-time Stones sideman Bobby Keys's saxophone levels out the showbiz sleaze with some pure class. 


The only minor quibbles I have would be with some of the archival footage from old interviews that serve as segues between some songs. They are brief though and only cut into one song (the Keith Richards sung “Connection”) so they don't hold up the proceedings much.


Living in a town of snarky hipsters (Chapel Hill, N.C.) I am highly aware that many have long ago dismissed the Stones (especially their recent output) as overplayed Baby Boomer bombast long past its expiration date. I wish those folks would get their bed-heads out of their asses and make the trip to their nearest IMAX theater to see SHINE A LIGHT. 


It's as fast paced and exciting a concert experience that can be imagined on the big screen (no, I haven't seen U2 3D!) and it is powerful enough to re-ignite the fanatic spark in even the staunchest Stones cynic. 


Sure, they've become part of the machine they used to rage against with inflated ticket prices and infinite rehashes of their greatest hits but they're still THE ROLLING STONES. When these grand old men who can still bring the rock are seen through the loving lenses of Scorsese I doubt many rock movie lovers will complain that they get no satisfaction. 


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Film Babble Blog's 10 Definitive Rockumentaries

Peter Bogdonavich's new four hour Tom Petty documentary RUNNING DOWN A DREAM inspired me to make a list of 10 essential and definitive rockumentaries. So here goes:

1. A tie - DON’T LOOK BACK (Dir. D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) / NO DIRECTION HOME: BOB DYLAN (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2005)

Despite the fact that I hate ties this shouldn't surprise anyone, I mean have you met me? D.A. Pennebaker's document of Bob's 1965 British tour coupled with Marty's wider scoped portrait of Dylan's rise to fame are equally essential so I could not separate them. 

The Bob shown in these docs, with the wild hair, sunglasses and mod clothing is the same Bob that Cate Blanchett portrayed in I'M NOT THERE - the one most caged in his persona and held to the highest levels of scrutiny. Incredible concert footage flows through both films and hits its pinnacle in May 1966 when Bob faces a hostile crowd and a historic heckler - "Judas!" is shouted from the darkness one night in Manchester. "I don't believe you - you're a liar!" 

Dylan sneers before launching into a mindblowingly rawking "Like A Rolling Stone". Scorsese and Pennebaker both capture lightning in a bottle and leave us with glorious glimpses of the greatest songwriter ever in his prime serenading the world even when most of the world wasn't quite ready for his weary tune.

2. I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART
(Dir. Sam Jones, 2002)

Not a career overview but a capsule of one particular plagued period when a great band - Wilco - made an incredible record (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and it was rejected by their record company. Chicago critic, and co-host of the great NPR show Sound Opinions Greg Kot puts it best: "It's not a VH1 "Behind The Music" story. It's a not a drugs-groupies-celebrity kind of story at all. This band's story is the music. 20 years from now their probably going to get more of their due than now." 

Well let's get them their due right now because this a compelling black and white film full of great music both in the studio and on stage. Key scene: leader Jeff Tweedy and guitarist Jay Bennett have a tense awkward argument over a crucial edit while mixing the album that shows how far they have drifted apart as collaborators. Indeed Bennett was asked to leave the band while the film was being made. The band grows stronger and gets a label and has a hit album which gives this rockumentary a happy ending and a nice second placing on this list. 

3. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
(Dir. Jeff Stein, 1979)

Sure there's that new more extensive, and correctly chronological AMAZING JOURNEY: THE STORY OF THE WHO but this hodgepodge of Who with its odds 'n ends, warts 'n all, kitchen sink approach is much more exciting. In the first five minutes explosives go off in Keith Moon's drumkit from a performance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Show then we zigzag around to such '60s shows as Shindig and Beatlcub, seminal gigs like WOODSTOCK and the Monterey International Pop Festival and then conclude with specially shot for the film footage from Shepperton Film Studios mere months before Moon's death in '78. 

We don't get narration or anything in the way of historical context - none of the bits are titled and nobody is identified and it is all out of order - but the collage effect satisfies and everything gels together like one of best movie mix-tapes ever.

Key scene: The Who blow the Stones off the stage on their own TV special (The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus) with a ferocious version of "A Quick One, While He's Away."

4. GIMME SHELTER 

(Dirs. Albert Maysles, David Maysles & Charlotte Zwerin, 1970)

The '60s dream died here, or so the tale goes - just ask Don McLean. That fatal night at Altamont Speedway where Hells Angels acted as security for a free Rolling Stones gig made what could have been just an assembly line concert film (see LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER for that) into a piece of true crime documentation that could play on MSNBC as well as VH1 Classic. The Stones had shed psychedelia and were getting back to their roots so in 1969, touring with Ike and Tina Turner and we get a good sampling of a Madison Square Garden concert (also featured on the album "Get Your Ya-Yas Out") and a stirring performance of "Wild Horses" at Muscle Shoals Studio in Alabama before proceeding to the scene of the crime in California. 

We see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards watching the Altamont footage in the editing room and they freeze the image of a knife in the hand held above the fighting crowd and it is one of the most chilling images in cinema that has ever been seen. I don't know if Satan was laughing with delight like McLean sings in "American Pie" but he was sure smirking. 

5. LET IT BE 
(Dir. Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 1970)

Actually the '60s dream died here too. 

The break-up of the Beatles with their final public performance on a rooftop in London is a tough sad watch but one that's vital in understanding exactly how the mighty can fall. Unfortunately because as producer and former Beatles assistant Neil Aspinall said recently "When we got halfway through restoring it, we looked at the outtakes and realized: this stuff is still controversial. 

It raised a lot of old issues" - the film may not see the light of a DVD player anytime soon. That's too bad - even though it's not the Beatles at their best it's them at their most human and as uncomfortable as George Harrison's studio squabble with Paul McCartney is (George: "'ll play, you know, whatever you want me to play. Or I won't play at all if you don't want me to play, you know. Whatever it is that'll please you, I'll do it.") we still somehow feel the love in what they were trying to make. And in the end isn't that what they were trying to tell us all along? 

6. DiG! (Ondi Timoner, 2004) 

Though most haven't heard of either of the bands studied here - The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre this tale of the sometimes friendly rivalry will make people listen up. Billed as "a real-life Spinal Tap" DiG! follows these bands with their retro rock through a few years of touring, arguing, getting wasted, busted, and getting up to do it all again. Despite the fact that DW frontman Courtney Taylor narrates, BJM member Anton Newcombe steals the show over and over with his asshole antics and crazy talk like "I'm not for sale. I'm fucking Love, do you understand what I'm saying? Like, the Beatles were for sale. I give it away." Maybe the funniest rockumentary on this list. 

7. TIME WILL TELL 
(Dir. Declan Lowney, 1992)

Bob Marley's story is pretty glossed over in this doc but that is okay because it is so full of great footage with many full songs represented. Interview footage doesn't really provide insights - except that Marley was always stoned - but footage from the One Love Peace Concert and various '70s TV shows (particuraly the footage from the Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC 1973 pictured left) is worth many repeat viewings. 

8. MADONNA: TRUTH OR DARE
(Dir. Alek Kekishian, 1991) 

I'm sure there are those who will scoff but I added this not just because I realized that this list was too much of a sausage party but because it's seriously a notable rockumentary. There sadly aren't many docs about female artists so this will have to some representin.'

This follows Madonna on her controversial Blond Ambition tour and has the backstage bits in DON'T LOOK BACK-esque hand-held black and white while the concert sequences are in color. We do actually get some amusing insights like when Warren Beatty, who briefly dated Madonna during the filming of DICK TRACY, says of her when she's having a dental appointment filmed: "she doesn't want to live off-camera, much less talk. There's nothing to say off-camera. Why would you say something if it's off-camera? What point is there existing? " None I can think of. 

9. THE LAST WALTZ
(Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1978) 

Sure Marty and The Band (they were Bob's band in 1965-66 under the name The Hawks) were both represented at the #1 spot on this list but this film deserves to place on its own. 

It's a doc wrapped around a seminal concert film - the farewell performance of arguably the greatest Canadian band ever who play an incredible set helped out by their friends - including ace work by Eric Clapton,Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Ronnie Hawkins, Ringo Starr, Neil Diamond (!), and their old bandleader Bob Dylan. 

The interview segments with Scorsese sitting casually around for conversations with Band members Robbie Robertson and Co. were parodied by Rob Reiner as director Marty DiBergi in THIS IS SPINAL TAP and they set a precedent for rockumentary etiquette. But for my money, the sequence in which Neil Young sings "Helpless" with The Band and accompanied by the beautiful backup singing of Joni Mitchell in the wings is one of the most infectious pieces of musical celluloid ever presented. 

That Marty had to visually edit a nugget of cocaine hanging off Young's nose by rotoscoping in post production only adds to the affecting edge. 

10. STANDING IN THE SHADOWS OF MOTOWN
(Dir. Paul Justman, 2002) 

This film provides a great service - it shines a light on the largely unknown supporting players on some of the greatest music of the 20th century. The Funk Brothers provided the backing for literally hundreds of hits that defined "the Detroit sound" - the memorable melodies behind Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, The Temptations, The Supremes, and many others. 

We get interviews with Bandleader Joe Henry and various other surviving Funk Brother members and we see new live performances where they play with such soul notables as Me'shell Ndegeocello, Chaka Kahn, and Bootsy Collins. An incredibly entertaining and emotional experience with a band that should be grandly celebrated for, as narrating actor Andre Braugher tells us, "having played on more number-one records than The Beatles, Elvis, The Rolling Stones, and The Beach Boys combined."

Postnotes: I tried to focus on wide-ranging documentaries not straight concert films hence the ommision of the Jonathan Demme's amazing STOP MAKING SENSE (which would place high on a list of straight concert films) and other worthy films of that caliber. 

Some other honorable mentions: THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON (reviewed on Film Babble Blog on Oct. 11th, 2006) GIGANTIC (A TALE OF TWO JOHNS) - A great doc about They Might Be Giants, a band who many left behind in college but is still part of our Daily Show lives. THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY - If you ever have a day to kill you could do much worse than watching this 674 min. production. MONTEREY POP METALLICA: SOME KIND OF MONSTER - This hilarious doc about a once mighty metal and going into therapy is the real-life Spinal Tap IMHO. 

THE FIFTH AND THE FURY- Julien Temple and the Sex Pistols - need I say more? THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILISATION This and its 2 sequels which cover the history of decadent underworld of punk and metal are as essential as rockumentaries can get. Whew! Okay, that's enough rockumentaries for now. If you think I've left out your favorite - that's what the comments below is for.

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