I’m in St. Pete, FL. and the only channel on which I’ve seen it is VH-1. And I’ve seen (well, heard) it A LOT. Thanks for trying to clear it up. I should probably stop what I’m doing and actually watch the commercial next time it comes on.
I’ll second that these guys are not terribly bright - if they were, they would have packed it in a long time ago instead of constantly bashing their heads against the brick wall that is the music industry. Record companies want young, stupid people who can be easily manipulated and look good in photographs. They want one hit album out of them that they can sell the shit out of, then they want them to fail on their second album and then quietly disappear.
The drummer is the most talented member of the band, and if he wasn’t so loyal to his friends and family, I’m pretty sure he could have gotten a position with another metal band after their drummer choked on vomit/spontaneously combusted/died in a freak gardening accident/etc.
No, they’re just Canadian.
Unlike most Hollywood releases these days, this was not released with 3000 prints in 3000 theaters on the same day. Instead, a small number of prints are going from town to town. Friday, June 5th it opens in Kansas City at the Tivoli…and a number of other places, but I can’t post where because it has a typical, utterly useless can’t-link-to-shit movie studio Flash website (the type that looks great on the developer’s laptop) I can’t just post a list of when it opens when.
Please, see this film.
Clearly you don’t watch VH1, where they play the Anvil trailer about once every half hour and have been doing so since March.
The trailer also gave me the impression that one or more of the band members might actually be retarded. The movie opens in my area in a few weeks and I’m excited to see it.
True. I haven’t watched VH1 for about 15 years.
I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts (WOOKINPANUB’s too) after you see it, so please bump this thread. Having not seen the trailer I don’t know how or why they’re coming off as retarded, but in the context of the movie, they’re just average, simple, decent guys with talent (in the case of the drummer) and a dream that won’t die (in the case of the lead singer), which is way more than your average Joe. Their families are awesome too. They’re not all always 100% supportive (the singer’s mom is quite perplexed by the whole thing) but they all love their guys (sons, husbands, fathers, brothers) and don’t go all moviehate* on them. Not even the kids roll their eyes and indicate they think their dads are weird. They think they’re great! It’s really heartwarming, the support they get.
But yeah, they’re not retarded even if a couple of times you want to boink the singer on the head for something he did (it’s a scene in England when they’re in the middle of recording, you’ll know it when you see it) and I’m interested in how you view those scenes that caused that reaction, after you’ve seen the movie.
*there’s not a word for it so I made one up. It sucks, but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s the manufactured conflict in movies where the wife/girlfriend (rarely the husband/boyfriend, though that happens too) is so upset because their guy has an actual job he has to do and they’re constantly pissy and dickish about them doing their job. See Nick Nolte’s girlfriend in 48 Hrs. (her boyfriend is a detective, but she gets angry when he has to work odd hours on cases) or Burt Lancaster’s wife in Airport (it’s a fucking blizzard outside, planes and passengers in peril, he has an airport to run and thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment to be responsible for, and his cunt of a wife picks that night to bitch him out about working too much). There are tons of other examples but I can’t think of it at the moment. Moviehate also works with dreams and schemes, but I can’t think of any examples. Oh wait, that recent movie about the windshield wipers guy, his bitch of a wife left him because he was wronged by a car company and he wanted to pursue justice.
Saw this last night. Was out on a date and went to an independent theater. I’d seen “Star Trek” and “Terminator Salvation”, so my date suggested “Anvil”. We thought it was going to be a Spinal Tap like movie. Both surprised when it turned out to be a documentary. Both thought it was pretty damned good. And interestingly enough, it was kinda like a real life “Spinal Tap”, with some really funny parts, but in the end, you really root for these guys.
And, oh, I don’t watch VH1 either, so that’s why I’d never heard of it before.
Looks like they’ve got their biggest gig in a while coming up…
I’m glad to see that it is going to be in a lot more theaters soon (I thought the early theaters were going to be the extent of its release). I went to see it with my boyfriend (who is also a metal musician but more realistic about the career prospects). We both enjoyed it!
That is so wonderful for them! Man, I hope they’ll build on this. Again, I’m not into metal at all, but I know a lot of metal bands have a great relationship with their fans and vis versa and these guys have certainly paid their dues.
[Zombie thread] I just saw this, and that band was almost the definition of Spinal Tap: pedestrian, lost, unintelligent, colorless 80s metal.
I feel for the guys, but artistically they’re going nowhere. How can their wives let them continue? I really feel sorry for them that they counted on rock stardom and have no backup skills. But that music could be written by your local good local county metal garage band.
I mean, “Crazy Train” is still being learned by metal kids 25 years later, but until this movie, I had never heard of Anvil.
I’m struck both by a sympathy for them as people, and a judgment on them as artists. They strike me as the local mall watercolorist of metal. He’s lots better than you are, but on the world scale, there’s just no real financial future. You have to be literally one in a million or better to make a good living at this. Art is a luxury purchase. Companies and people need accountants and lawyers, but they can live without marginal art.
Yup, they’re a real band, in fact I have tickets to see them next Saturday night at the Hellfire Festival. Busy night, it’s the Rocky Horror Show at 5pm then straight over to the NEC for some good music!