Music Docs turn from Rock Gods to Nerds

In my old print journalism days, a “thumbsucker” was a nickname for a broad, entertaining sweeping trend/analysis story. And last week, Cosmo Landesman at the Times of London posted a great one claiming that nerds are displacing Rock Gods in the music film realm. He cites a bunch of recent releases – such as Heavy Load (discussed on this blog earlier), Heavy Metal in Baghdad, Nerdcore Rising, and Of All the Things – where the rock star is not at the forefront, but metalheads, fans, geeks and Top 40 songwriters take center stage. Landesman reaches a bit of course (the U2 3D film is one of the year’s highest grossing documentaries while Scorcese’s Shine A Light was perhaps the most widely discussed. But he wonders if the surfeit of films about fringers represents a new trend:

Are such films expanding the form of the rock doc by making a place for new and offbeat voices or simply creating an entertaining freak show, one that gives space to the kind of wannabes and one-flop wonders we know so well from reality television?

It’s a somewhat false debate that he’s setting up (a “straw man” in the old terms of the trade!) A good music film is a good film (and note, a good music film is NOT always good music!) And any focus on music outside the pinhole of the insanely popular groups is good for culture. And by the end of the piece, Landesman takes down his straw man to aptly recognize this. The good news is that many contemporary rock docs are infused with music but not driven by it. The personalities and how they impact culture is what’s fascinating. And in some ways, he writes, this is a return to good old days:

Yet the fact that the focus of these films is more on the people than the performances is a welcome return to the glory days of the rock doc, when DA Pennebaker’s Don’t Look Back was more about Dylan the man than Dylan the performer. This new wave of rockumentaries reflects a shift in power from bands, who expect directors to make the film that will sell more records and maintain the legend, to directors, who are eschewing the usual film-of-the-concert format to tell more interesting stories.

To celebrate the outsiders, here is a trailer from one film that Landesman doesn’t mention but is worthy of inclusion: Blip: Reformat the Planet, about the musicians who compose songs from the sounds of old videogames. It played last year at SXSW.

more about "Blip", posted with vodpod

How much of a Crazy Train is a doc about Ozzy?

Can a son do a proper doc on his Dad? Jack Osbourne is going to try. Variety reports that Jack and Sharon are self-financing a doc about Ozzy, which will be shopped around by Jacko Productions, Jack’s new company. The film will be the definitive biopix of Ozzy’s career, with early concerts and even an interview with his first wife. Jack promises the doc will give new depth to Ozzy’s well-known portrayal as doddering Dad on MTV’s reality show:

MTV couldn’t show the darkness and so they used all the goofy things, but that’s not really who he was at the time….he refuses to do a book, because he’s terribly dyslexic, can’t write and doesn’t want a ghostwriter, so I thought, why not make this his talking book?

Normally I’d worry that family politics and the misguided belief of sanitizing the bad parts of someone’s life would get in the way of a revealing film. But with the Osbournes and their transparency, all bets are off. In fact, its the opposite worry: how much more naked can Ozzy be portrayed than he already has? But since he’s been gifted with one of music’s all time best voices and has had an up and down career that personifies rock and roll, this film and perhaps the family’s intimate take has the potential to be something special.

Urbanworld Music Doc Slate

The 12th annual Urbanworld Film Festival is underway in NYC through September 14, sponsored by programmers like HBO and BET. There are tons of promising flicks and like all good film festivals hailed on this blog, there are a bunch of music related docs on the program. The highlights:

• Big Snoop Dogg’s Youth Authority
  A doc featuring a music star, this film examines how Snoop teaches at-risk kids to avoid Cali’s notorious “Youth Authority.” It recounts heavily Snoop’s own life story. Clip below.
• Number One With a Bullet
  The interwoven tale of many of today’s biggest rap stars who have all been shot by guns and survived near-death experiences. Features Young Buck, Ice Cube, Mos Def, KRS-One, Obie Trice, Prodigy, Damon Dash, Fat Joe, and more.
• Two Turntables and a Microphone
  I wrote about this when it originally premiered in L.A., but this is the New York debut. It has also shown at festivals in Toronto and Seattle.
• Wu: The Story Of The Wu-Tang Clan
  A doc on Staten Island’s finest, mixed and directed by the group‘s childhood friend and former video director, Gerald “Gee- Bee” Barclay.
• This is the Life
  The film explores the rap scene at the Good Life, a health food store in South Central. The emcees there in the ’90s revolutionized the genre with their rhyming patterns, melodies and lyrical styles, all of which have been influenced many big rap stars like Ice Cube, Mos Def and Black Eyed Peas. Artists featured include Cut Chemist & Chali2na of Jurassic 5, Freestyle Fellowship, CVE, Medusa, and more.
• Slingshot Hip Hop
  Young Palestinian rappers living in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank where hip hop is more than just music.
• The Other Side of the Water
  Young immigrants in Brooklyn who reinvent Haitian music.

Disciple of Gondry Films Wild Tour Ride

And now for something cool from across the pond. Partizan Films, the home of the “it” indie director of the moment Michel Gondry, has released a tour film on DVD about Soulwax. Part of the Weekend Never Dies was captured by director Saam Farahmand who shot 120 shows from the Belgium band with one camera and (to quote Partizan’s braggadocio) “captures the adulation, debauchery, ebullience, reflection, cynicism, tiredness, despair, delusion, ridiculousness, contradiction, revelation, exhaustion, homesickness of the life of a DJ/band on the road.” I haven’t seen the full doc so I’m not sure if it can live up to that description but just check out the clip below and even if you’re not into the electronica-fused rock of Soulwax. That’s some spunky editing going on there! Given the U.S. aversion to electronica, this one isn’t available in the states yet. But thanks to the global economy, it can be ordered via Amazon UK.

Early reviews for IT MIGHT GET LOUD

A few weeks ago I previewed upcoming music docs at the Toronto International Film Festival. Getting much of the attention is the new film that hails rock guitars heros. It Might Get Loud , by Davis Guggenheim, director of the Al Gore doc “An Inconvenient Truth,” profiles the sound of strumming through Jimmy Page, the Edge and the White Stripes’ Jack White. Scatterolight, mostly a U2 fan blog, and Mad Hatter, a movie guy, gush over the legends who showed up in Toronto. Early reviews,though, are somewhat mixed. Twitch, a film site, call the “love letter to the electric guitar” as the three distinct artists tell stories of their own musical journeys. It says:

Much more interesting are the sequences with The Edge and Page, both of whom have spent the bulk of their careers hugely overshadowed by larger-than-life vocalists being given the chance to talk about themselves and their craft in their own words, with scarcely a mention of their respective front men….also fascinating are the sequences are the scene in which the trio sit to jam together, each of them taking a turn to show off a favorite riff, to teach one of their songs to the others…when Page steps up and hits the opening notes of Whole Lotta Love both The Edge and White visibly struggle to keep themselves from cracking up like a couple of star struck kids. Yes, as much as they’ve accomplished they’re both still fans first.

But the Eye Weekly says the film veers closely to “Nigel Tufnel territory.” (Meow!) Mark Olsen of the LA Times also laments the film, while having some great jamming and insight to Jimmy Page, doesn’t hold together.

Guggenheim has chosen to shoot the film in a sort of epic portraiture style reminiscent of the photography of Annie Leibovitz, but that only serves to highlight the stunted strangeness of the situations, and make the film seem somehow phony even as the participants are trying to explain themselves honestly.

One of our folks at VH1 was expected to see the film so I’ll get the full skinny from her when she returns. No clips on the Net yet.

Special Tribute to Music Docs

If you’re an LA denizen, then you are probably enjoying the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre’s current tribute to music docs. (It runs through Thursday September 4.) The diverse lineup presents the interesting issue of how to curate a well rounded music doc retrospective. Obviously, there has to be some films from the rock doc canon, like A HARD DAY’S NIGHT, THE LAST WALTZ and STOP MAKING SENSE. There has to be some rock icons too: NEIL YOUNG: HEART OF GOLD (which we aired on VH1), IMAGINE: JOHN LENNON and a double shot of Dylan (THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MIRROR: BOB DYLAN LIVE AT THE NEWPORT FOLK FESTIVAL and BOB DYLAN ‘65 REVISITED (trailer below.) Toss in a premiere too: PATTI SMITH: DREAM OF LIFE.

While this lineup is strong on concert films and biopics, there ought to be a space as well for those hybrid story-driven music docs that tell something larger beyond the musicians such as popular music’s sensibility and reflection of music history. I’m thinking flicks like DIG or Some Kind of Monster, Decline of Western Civiliazation. Also could have been fun to have a flick or two about the accidential artists, who add flair to pop music, like a Daniel Johnson or Roky Erickson. What other docs should be in the “canon” for a retrospective? Leave ideas below!

Incoming: Notable Music DVDs for early September

Once again, courtesy of Pause & Play, here are some notable music DVDs to reach stores in the first half of this month:

AC/DC: In Performance
America: SoundStage: America Live in Chicago
The Beatles: Magic Mystery Tour Memories
Eagles: Music in Review
Norah Jones: Live From Austin TX
Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution
Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Tour: Live In Toronto
Lisa Lopes: Last Days of Left Eye
Paul McCartney: Desperately Seeking Paul McCartney
Pink Floyd: The Early Pink Floyd: A Review and Critique
Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman Live: The Best of Cat Stevens
Yes: The New Director’s Cut of The Wonderous Songs & The Wonderous Stories