Tribeca Report: Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful

Debuted last night at Tribeca as a work in progress.

Hmm.

Was beautifully shot but it was in black and white, which was a bit of throwback.

Bon Jovi himself sure looks young at 46.

Did I mention the black and white?

All told, Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful was a surface view into Bon Jovi’s life. But what a strange routine a rock star has. In my favorite part, Bon Jovi says he goes from the quiet of a hotel room to 70,000 screaming maniacs and then back to the quiet of a hotel room, ears ringing, late at night so he can’t call home. He travels but never sees places since he’s mostly in the gym, at a restaurant or onstage. He seemed lonely and disappointed at being unloved by critics. Maybe he elected to shoot his film in black and white to appeal to them (as if critics were so easy to fool!)

One Other Thing to Note in Variety Last week

That Variety article on music docs had one other interesting part well known to music documentarians: the brutal cost of music licensing. This fact alone makes music documentaries more of a highwire act than the typical doc because of a filmmaker has be an equally good wooer of licensees like music publishers, record labels and of course stars.

The article cites a cool film has been making the film festival rounds called The Wrecking Crew about the L.A. session musicians who played behind acts like the Beach Boys and Sonny and Cher. Director Denny Tedesco spent more than 12 years making the film. But it still hasn’t found distribution in part because of the “low- six-figure licensing fees” for more than 130 song parts used. (This could represent a tenth to a half of a music doc’s budget.) The article says:

Tedesco stresses the labels and publishers have agreed to let their music be used at a discounted rate, “but we’re still trying to raise the money for that,” he says. Otherwise, he fears his labor of love is “dead in the water.”

“We’re only interested if (the project) is completely done,” concurs Tom Bernard, Sony Pictures Classics co-president and co-founder. “Come to us pre-cleared and everything taken care of.”

That’s why I’m big fan of compulsory licenses for documentaries, where there is a federally mandated rate that filmmakers can pay to use music, without torturous negotiations or exorbitant fees. (It’s the same system the radio business uses to pay publishers though oddly they don’t copyright holders (labels and sometimes artists.)) I’ll bore about this more fully in a future post.

Tribeca Report: Burning Down the House

How did an anti-establishment music club become so beloved that it almost turned into a cultural landmark? That’s the well-known story of the Bowery’s late CBGBs. While I originally worried that the doc would focus too much on the circumstances of the club’s demise, I do admit in retrospect that the tale was fascinating. Basically the one jerk in the entire city who hated CBGBs was the landlord (who ran a non-profit homeless no less!) Somehow, the doc neglects to mention that CBGBs is now a John Varvatos store, though its other framing device of director Jim Jarmusch and author Luc Sante walking through the ruins of the club is moving and insightful.

While I originally wanted more stories from back in the day, there is also a limit to how much anyone could hear about the legendary disgusting bathrooms. I also would have liked a bit more music with this one (only snippets) so enjoy the Dictators clip above (sung the second to last night of CBGBs existence) since I already posted the movie trailer in my Tribeca preview last week. The film is a testimony to the club’s founder Hilly Krystal and anyone who wants a nostalgia bath for punk and hardcore should check it out.

Julien Temple’s Latest

Noted doc director Julien Temple last completed the Joe Strummer doc The Future is Unwritten. Now his latest film is opening the London Indepedent Film Festival and its about another classic ’80s band Madness. The Liberty of Norton Folgate seems an ambitious take on mixed culture of London as depicted in Madness’ songs and concert at the Hackney Empire. Perfect timing of course since Madness is about to release its first album in sixteen years and the film’s title shares the name of the interrelated song cycle on the new album. Somehow various areas of London are interwoven in the film and the concert is beamed on walls, pavenments and bridges and pubs.

Oddly, I have been scouring the web for reviews of the film from the festival and I’ve come up with nada. Does Google trawl that slow from overseas sources? If you’ve seen it, let everyone know in the comments!

Are Music Docs a Tough Sell?

Variety is en fuego with articles about music earlier this week but this one saying music documentaries are a tough sell seems off. The article cites Scorses’s Shine A Light grossed only $5.5 million and U2 3d which reaped just $9.7 million. Even the Jonas Brothers concert film only grossed $12.7 million in its first week.

But if you squint, you’ll realize the article only spoke about theatrical docs. Of course, these are tough times theatrically for documentaries of all kinds, not just music. That wasn’t addressed. And the good news (very hard to read between the lines) is that docs do well on DVD and TV (because if not, then why would everyone keep making ‘em?) There was no discussion of new distribution channels on the web (see the Gorillaz doc post the other day) either. But you can’t have everything in one article, right?

But what I want to discuss is how the article seems to be mostly a lament of omniculture, a refrain that has come to typlify media criticism. Music now comes in thousands of flavors, the gatekeepers no longer control what gets on the tiny record store shelves and anyone can be a star with an album made with a mic and a PC. There’s never been a better time to be a music fan and never have so much music been consumed. But the critics miss the days where everyone listened to the same Top 40 songs.

See what I’m talking about as Variety references music docs:

Woodstock may have taken place 40 years ago, but the Oscar-winning film that chronicled that landmark event — along with such features as “Don’t Look Back,” “The Last Waltz” and “Stop Making Sense” — set the bar so high that few music-driven documentaries in their wake have measured up. These works gave viewers front-row access to historic events and artists, capturing the public’s imagination in lasting, significant ways. But as popular music becomes ever more homogenized, and today’s American Idol becomes tomorrow’s afterthought, the mystique that enveloped artists like Hendrix, Dylan and the Band has been relegated to nostalgia.

I would argue some of the best music docs have come after these seminal events.

There’s also an inherently bias Boomer mentality too that seeps through reporting today: nothing could be as good as it was back then. Of course, Kurt Andersen has written that this is just a reflection of looming boomer mortality:

For half a century, they have dominated the culture, and now, as they enter the glide path to death, I think their generational solipsism unconsciously extrapolates approaching personal doom: When I go, everything goes with me, my end will be the end.

I wonder if this declinism in society in general as well as music docs will vanish when new editors and gatekeepers take the seats from the Boomers. One can only hope.

Lil’ Wayne Cries, Sues and Loses

I’ll leave it to the bloggers who discuss Leni Riefenstahl’s films to give the proper demarcations between film and propaganda. But the tension between what’s standalone art and what’s a video press release is a very real in the music doc arena. Musicians (and their label and/or lawyers) control the copyrights for music. So documentarians who seek authenticity and their own statement on a musician’s work ultimately has to get into bed with the musicians or they can’t use the music or get access to the artist. For a music doc, that’s often an unsellable compromise. So more often than not, the two sides strike a bargain. When this dance is successful (think of Joe Berlinger’s Metallica doc Some Kind of Monster), no one realizes that the band basically had final say over all aspects of the film. When its done wrong, well, hello Lil’ Wayne.

While I’m not privy to the facts of the case, here is what appears to have happened. As I wrote during Sundance, Adam Bhala Lough’s Lil’ Wayne doc The Carter was an early hit of the festival, a no hold bars look at Lil’ Wayne. But before the final screenings, the film was pulled from Sundance and none of the parties were commenting. Some speculated that it may have been a music rights issues, as Weezy was sued by the Rolling Stone’s publisher for his unauthorized usage of “Play With Fire” on his album “The Carter III.” But when that lawsuit was quietly settled in late January when the disputed recording was voluntarily removed from his album, the film never reappeared for other festivals or presales.

But it was pulled because of a dispute over final cut authority, as news broke of another lawsuit. Lil’ Wayne alleged that the film’s producers agreed to give him final cut over the film. The lawsuit said:

The 26-year-old artist allowed Digerati Holdings and QD3 Entertainment to shoot a docu-film about him. The movie company, in turn, promised to give him approval over the final cut. In early December last year, the companies screened the film for Lil Wayne’s manager, who advised them to remove objectionable content from the film. They sent another clip in January to the manager for review and approval. The manager once more demanded that all objectionable content be removed. Instead of doing so, they allegedly presented a “scandalous portrayal” of the rapper at Sundance without his approval. He is suing for breach of contract, breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unfair business practices, fraud and invasion of privacy among others.

It’s not certain what the alleged “scandalous portrayal” was but most think it was Wayne’s constant cough syrup & soda addiction, depicted throughout the film.

Yet here is one case where the blog post is longer than the news. The other day per Variety, a judge refused Lil Wayne’s attempt to block the release of the documentary. Think this one best illustrates that sometimes an artist’s entitlement is so great that they think they have final cut even when they don’t. Cheers to those filmmakers who don’t buckle on final cut in order to create a lasting portrayal.

Photo Credit: Georgetown Voice

Not Noted: The Creative Recycling of Dylan Docs

Variety today sort of catches up to a post I wrote last November: filmmaker Joel Gilbert and his unauthorized Bob Dylan documentaries. It doesn’t mention how Gilbert recycles the same footage in different packaging. Instead, it champions Gilbert as a guy who offers fans something the authorized Dylan docs don’t do:

Gilbert’s docs get dissenting views and unvarnished anecdotes from savvy and articulate observers like legendary producer Jerry Wexler or seasoned music pros like Rob Stoner and Spooner Oldham…plus fans appreciate his detailed discussions with Dylan associates, he says.

But for the DIY documentarians, there is some good business intelligence about Gilbert’s model (even if it may be hard to replicate since Gilbert is a one man edit/shooting/producing/ultimate Dylan fanataic who also plays in a Dylan tribute band that includes three of Bob’s former musicians!) Gilbert’s DVDs are profitable because he handles the interviews and editing himself and his tribute band recreates “Dylan-esque” music. And before one of the films goes on sale broadly, he has a several-week window to sell the DVDs exclusively through his website, where he says the initial sales help him to break even.

Tribeca Music Docs Preview

There are a bunch of films of which I’ve seen bits and scraps that will be shown in more fully realized versions at this week’s Tribeca Film Festival. Here are previews and I’ll post more about these flicks when I see ‘em.

Burning Down the House: The Story of CBGB (Director: Mandy Stein) – As you can see from the clip above, this doc is a valentine to the most storied rock club in NYC history. The trailer shows some great old footage and old moshers at shows from bands like Patti Smith, Talking Heads, Television, Bad Brains, and The Ramones. I’m surprised that it seems to focus a lot on how CBs lost its lease, which is horrible, but sort of over – I’d rather just revel in the memories. There are a lot of docs about clubs (one I really enjoyed was 2006’s Wetlands Preserved but the trick is to make it about the vibe of the place and not a litany of acts or firsts. Wonder if Stein pulls it off.

Bon Jovi: When We Were Beautiful (Director: Phil Griffin) – Jersey’s second most famous band is profiled while on 2008’s “Lost Highway” world tour. I’ve seen the trailer and its sure to excite Bon Jovi lovers but will the film trascend its fan base? Griffin recently did the MTV doc about Britney Spears.

Soundtrack for a Revolution (Directors: Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman) – From Danny Glover’s production shingle comes a doc fusing U.S. hstory with contemporary music. The stories behind the classic folks songs from the civil rights era are told and then reinterpreted by contemporary artists like Wyclef Jean, Joss Stone, John Legend, TV on the Radio, the Roots, the Blind Boys of Alabama.

P-Star Rising (Director: Gabriel Noble Producer: Marjan Tehrani ) – I used to work with Marjan so I got a sneak peek of 20 minutes of this film last year. And it seemed very promising. Jesse Diaz was a former hip hop wanna-be who ended up a broke single dad with two children. One of those kids is his 9 year old daughter Priscilla aka P-Star, who is a budding rap star even at such a young age. Shot over a four year period, this Hoops Dreams-like film sees at a family struggling with itself and the music business.

Soul Power (Director: Jeff Levy-Hinte) – Still haven’t seen it since I wrote the preview when it screened in Toronto, so I’ll just repeat the same here. There was the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” bout between Ali and Foreman in Zaire in 1974..but there was also a concert. This film recounts it with performances by James Brown, B.B. King, Bill Withers, The Spinners, etc. Some of my VH1 cohorts saw it at SXSW and gave it double thumbs up.

Gorillaz Has an Online World Premiere

Hooray again for alternative forms of distribution because without the kind folks at Babelgum, not sure anyone would get to see this funky doc Bananaz. It’s all about the making of Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz, the “most successful animated band ever” per the press release (who were they competing with btw? Josie and the Pussycats? The Chipmunks? Was there a vote?)

I caught this film at SXSW ‘08 and enjoyed the behind-the-scenes peek at how Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl) created the characters Murdoc, 2D, Noodle and Russel Hobbs. While it’s one type of art bringing the imaginary band to life on page, it was a pretty amazing feat to see how the characters did a live performance. There was a lot of British idioms and in jokes in the film, which weighed it down for me, but so long as its online friendly, it’s definitely worth streaming through and speeding past the slower parts. Other deleted scenes, screensavers, fan candy can be found here at Babelgum. The film went online earlier today.

A Proper Pearl Jam doc

Last November I wrote about Pearl Jam’s underground indie documentary that had some strange timing and was an Internet-only release. Now the band is going high profile. Our friends over at The Playlist have gathered news that Cameron Crowe will oversee a doc to commemorate the band’s 20th anniversary in 2011. The director and band go back decades: Pearl Jam did two songs for Crowe’s 1992 film Singles and Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard performed cameos (as the band Citizen Dick – see above for the nostalgic clip.) Notable director Morgan Neville, whose list of credits include docs on Muddy Waters and Hank Williams, will produce. The project will utilize existing footage about the band – note that the deluxe edition of their recently released and remixed album Ten included a DVD their rarely seen MTV Unplugged concert.