The New Tom Petty Doc: Who Knew Bogdanovich Could Rock?

Who knew Peter Bogdanovich could rock?
This guy - the refined ascot wearing autuer who directed THE LAST PICTURE SHOW but is best known to the masses as Dr. Melfi's shrink on The Sopranos not only can rock but he can rock for a long ass time.

Four hours in fact. That's the length of his new rock documentary TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM. I took in the whole thing in one sitting and loved every second of it (I hope my review below won't take 4 hours to read) so let's take in Bogdanovich as he goes off on a Tom Petty tangent: 

TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM 
(Dir. Peter Bogdanovich, 2007)


"Marty took 3 hours and 40 minutes to tell 6 years of Dylan and I figured, if that's the case, why shouldn't we take 4 hours to tell 30 years of Tom Petty?" - Peter Bogdanovich on Sound Opinions (broadcast January 7th, 2008)

A big package this is - 4 discs, 2 of which are the 4 hour 15 minute director's cut of the documentary, the 3rd disc is the complete 30th Anniversary Gainesville, Florida concert from September 30th, 2006, and the 4th is a soundtrack CD featuring 9 previously unreleased songs. 

Whew! Hard to claim to be just a casual Petty fan after absorbing all of that. Bogdanovich's film even at its bloated length is engrossing and never lags. Framed by footage from the before mentioned concert we are taken through the history of the band with interview segments spliced with photos, fliers, home movies, TV appearances, grainy videotape material, and every other source available. 

The ups and downs are perfectly punctuated with Petty standards - the punchy pop bright Byrds influence that brought forth the break-through single "American Girl" captures the band on a television stage young and green while the promotional video for "Refugee" shows them freshly on the mend from battles with lawyers and declaring bankruptcy. 

 Of course there are unavoidable rockumentary clichés that are as old than THIS IS SPINAL TAP - recording studio squabbles, the trials of transporting drugs over the borders, and the "Free Fallin'"-out of the band when they aren't on the same page but they are amusingly displayed in a knowing manner that transcends the usual VH1 classic fodder. 

It's hard not to think of Scorsese's landmark Dylan doc when putting in disc 2 of RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM for the most obvious reason - as Part 2 starts the first words uttered, by Petty, are "Bob Dylan, I don't think there's anyone we admire more". So the collaboration with Petty and Dylan begins - there is great footage from the HBO special Hard To Handle. 

Bob thrusts his hand behind him while playing his harmonica on the intro of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" to stop the band from coming in too soon and it's an amazing moment - the greatest songwriter ever (as Petty and I call him) directing the best working class Americana band of the mid '80s and beyond.

Tom and Bob's collaboration led to the Traveling Wilburys - the ultimate supergroup filled out by former Beatle George Harrison, legend Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne of the elaborately Beatle-esque Electric Light Orchestra. Petty's approach was forever altered - which we see as certain band members have to cope with his new direction. Especially former drummer Stan Lynch, (who refused to be interviewed for the film but is presented in archive footage) who says bluntly of Petty's biggest selling album "Full Moon Fever" - "there were more than a couple songs I just didn't like."

Through the '90s up to now we see Petty and the Heartbreakers weather grunge (Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl played with them on SNL right after Lynch left), a death of a long time but still considered "new kid" bassist Howie Epstein, and the competition from a world in which "rock stars were being invented on game shows" all with their self declared "I Won't Back Down" spirit. 

Though you ordinarily wouldn't think of him in the same company as Orson Welles and John Ford, this masterful showcase of material makes a solid case that Petty is indeed in the pantheon of those previous subjects of Bogdanovich's.

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, who seems to show up in every rocumentary or rock related movie these days (even WALK HARD), appears at one point to sing a duet with Petty on "The Waiting" at a recent concert. When the song ends and the giant audience erupts Petty says to Vedder, “Look at that, Eddie - rock and roll heaven.”

He's right - for 4 hours and 15 minutes it sure is. 

Bogdanovich's Petty opus may just make a dent in Film Babble Blog's 10 Definitive Rock Docs post coming soon.

More later...

Depp & Burton Together Again At The Multiplex

I went today with my Varsity Theatre co-worker friend Molly to see SWEENEY TODD: DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET at Movies At Timberlyne. I realized as we pulled up that the last time I'd been to this particular multiplex was for CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY - another Tim Burton/Johnny Depp deal. So I decided that I'll only go to Timberlyne to see Burton/Depp movies from this day forward. So I won't be back 'til 2010 when Burton's live action ALICE IN WONDERLAND is released. Depp as the Mad Hatter - can't hardly wait. So onto the picture show: SWEENEY TODD: DEMON OF FLEET STREET (Dir. Tim Burton, 2007) I went in to this completely unfamiliar with the original 1979 Steven Sondheim musical (I say "original" loosely - that was based on a 1973 play by Christopher Bond which was based on...oh, you get the idea) so I liked letting it play out with no comparing notions. To me it was essentially the 6th in the Burton/Depp series - which are usually gothic twisted stories with a misunderstood but still magnetic protagonist with an odd affliction or vision and all the visual splendor that a crazy haired madman director can provide. This time though Depp is singing and not badly I admit. Burton's wife and reporatory member Helen Bonham Carter has good pipes too. In fact all of the cast -Sasha Baron Cohen (BORAT!), Alan Rickman, and Jamie Campbell Bower all sang without embarrasment - I just wish they had better songs to sing. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first let's get onto the obligatory plot description. Depp in the title role, with all the strained intensity he brought to Captain Jack Sparrow, shows up in London after years in exile. He finds that his beloved wife poisoned herself and a daughter is being held captive by an evil Judge (Rickman) - the same Judge who had him exiled. His old landlady (Carter) runs a scummy roach-ridden meat-pie emporium and after a taste of one of her 'orrible pies she returns his treasured set of razors - which shine like EDWARD SCISSORHAND's blades in the light. Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower) - the young sailor who brought Todd home, falls in love with Todd's daughter (Jane Wisener) and plots to save her from the evil Judge. Todd, while planing his revenge against the Judge, goes into an odd business venture with his lusty landlady. He, with Barber shop set-up, slits the throats of his customers and drops them through a chute to her basement to be used for meat in her 'orrible pies. Maybe, as I was told, the editing down to 2 hours from 3 of the original score made for a lot of concessions but the amount of fragmentary non-gripping verses without choruses and then overlong sequences based on a flimsy overdone melody left me buried musically. None of the songs were catchy enough for me to remember right now is what I'm saying. The look of the film with its grey hued tones contrasting with the bright rich red color of blood lives up the best of Burton except that the flour whiteness of Depp's and Bonham Carter's skin almost gave me snow blindness. Typical of Burton there are a handful of fitfully funny bits - Depp's unchanging gloomy mug in the one sunny fantasy scene song that Bonham Carter sings ("By The Sea") is one that comes to mind. Still the whole thing seems to lack ommph. Full sequences are better than passable but there was no real passion present. Depp and Burton next time out should sink their teeth into such material not just nibble. I mean a musical mind you, one with a costume ball rape scene and scores of bloody slit throats, should be a full meal not a glorified Hors d'oeuvre. Just sayin' that this choppy LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS meets DELICATESSEN could've been so much more. More later...

An ATONEMENT Assessment and Award Season Annoyances

The Golden Globes ceremony was reduced to a press conference and the fate of the Academy Awards (the Oscars ya know?) is up in the air all because of the damn long-ass writer's strike. 

Why does this have to happen in a time overflowing with actual quality product to appraise? I mean in most other mediocre years we could blow this off, but this time out there are a bunch of deserving films and crowds of actors just waiting around to be recognized then ridiculed (that's where the writers come in) by their peers or whoever. 

As for how good movies have been lately, I don't recall reading the phrase - cue that voice-over announcer guy: "...is one of the best movies of the year" in as many reviews in previous years as much as I have for 2007. 

Like I said in an earlier post I'm holding out on making the Filmbabble Blog Top Ten Of 2007 list at least until I see THERE WILL BE BLOOD (which opens on the 18th) though it will be another month before PERSEPOLIS comes to my area so I know that I'll still feel like I'm jumping the gun. Anyway for the moment I have more movies to catch up on including:

ATONEMENT (Dir. Joe Wright, 2007)

In this production of the acclaimed bestselling novel by Ian McEwan set mostly in the 1930's, we are taken from snooty British sitting rooms to the bloody battlefields of war torn France, and then back to occupied London and the journey is gripping every frame of the way. 

But it is the power of the written word that fuels this film and fills the head of Briony Tallis (a coy Saoirse Ronan) a 13 year old member of a wealthy English family. From an overhead window in her family's mansion she sees her older but not wiser sister Cecelia (Keira Knightly) with Robbie - the son of the housekeeper. 

Possible Spoilers! - What happens next is seen from 2 different perspectives - Briony's and that of the would be lovers. Later that evening after a tense dinner and the turmoil caused by missing twin brothers again Briony sees, or mis-sees if that's a word, something that changes her life forever. 

The unfolding and refolding of events here is so juicy that even if you've read the book you'll want to discover yourself so I'll discontinue my ambiguously tortured plot recap. As the lovers in this romance novel by way of Masterpiece Theater foray McAvoy has the earnest can-do spirit that Robbie had in spades in the book while Knightly seems an empty but still elegant vessel for whatever stressful emotion comes her way. Briony is played by 3 different actresses over 60 years - the before mentioned Ronan at age 13, at age 18 - Romola Garai, and (credited as Older Briony) Vanessa Redgrave - all with the right dash of pathos. 

The fractured narrative, of which is so popular in modern film these days (Tarentino et al), is actually nicely faithful to the novel's construction. Having just finished the McEwan novel right before going to the cinema I had the text fresh in my brain while viewing. 

I was at first annoyed how scores of inner dialogue often had to be condensed down to one spoken line, but when it sank in I was amazed how much was true to the tone and intent of the 349 page tome. 

ATONEMENT is a surefire Award season favorite - if that season ever really gets going that is and yes, ahem, it's one of the best movies of the year.

More later...