Looks great. A history of an important recording studio and a commentary on how recording music has changed in the digital age. Lookin’ forward to it.
Aye, it looks like a cool movie but I’m gonna wait for home release.
For anyone in Chicago interested, this will be playing 3 times at the Patio Theater (6008 Irving Park, at Irving Park and Austin). Tickets are $7.00.
February 8th & 9th at 10:00pm
February 11th at 7:30pm
It sounds interesting. I’m going.
I’ll let Tripler chime in on his own, but we saw this last Sunday at Sundance and it’s an hour too long at least. The first hour makes a great documentary of Sound City and the Neve board, but then the second half is devoted to Grohl, his connections and an enormous amount of tedium. I’m being vague b/c there **are **some moments that are surprising. We paid $15 each so I guess if it’s only $7 to see it’s roughly worth it. Foo Fighters fans may as well pass, btw.
Just in case, avoid the movie ‘Ass Backwards’ unless you find someone offering to pay you to watch it.
I have no interest in Grohl, but I’ve seen lots of great documentaries about people I previously had no interest in (Rodreguiz in Searching For Sugar Man, Ginger Baker in Beware of Mr. Baker, Bill Cunningham: New York, Anna Wintour in The September Issue, Vic Muniz in Waste Land and on an on), so you’re saying he’s not interesting enough to be a focus in a documentary?
I just looked up Ass Backwards and it does sound terrible. What did you see at Sundance that you liked?
I likewise love auto/biographies, they’re my favorite books to read and shows to watch, genuinely. I don’t want to ruin any of Sound City, so please pardon the vagaries. Mr. Grohl is in charge of this documentary and it’s quite clear from about 45 minutes in that he likes the sound of his voice and his image. He’s great at editing other people into concise snippets and shots but himself? Everything he has to say is important and pertinent to the story. Every face he makes or mood he has must be shown in tedious detail, long shot and zoomed in. Sometimes other people are in the shot w/ him, and their interaction w/ and reaction to Grohl must be shown so the viewer understands how important what’s going on is to posterity, etc. This is in 95% of the shots in the last hour of this movie, which will feel about 3 hours long. Grohl himself isn’t the focus of the documentary, it’s based on the Neve board and its impact on some kinds of music from some eras.
I thought Ass Backwards was going to be light and funny and star Vincent D’Onofrio since he has such high billing; he’s got maybe 4 total minutes of screen time in a role any speaking, apparently-male human could have done. Same w/ Jon Cryer.
What we liked this year - I liked Hell Baby, The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear, History of the Eagles, the Animation Spotlight had 75% very good stuff, and Look of Love was ok if very depressing. I’d pay to see the Eagles documentary (which got bought and will be seen on SHO this month, I think) and Hell Baby again. Computer Chess was a confusing disappointment (one of those the critics love and you don’t see why), I walked out of Sweetwaterb/c of the violence but Tripler thought it was a good Western. He also saw Charlie Victor Romeo and liked it, though it wasn’t entertaining or enjoyable. Since it’s based on the transcripts of air emergencies I wasn’t surprised to hear it wasn’t amusing; but his Master’s is on airfield management, so it interested him. He and I disagreed on The Machine Which…, he thought it was dull.
From last year I only recommend Can. It’s well done and compelling.
We don’t get to see the films that are popular going into the Festival, they get sold out before us locals get a chance to buy tickets on pre-sale and we didn’t have enough time in our schedule to waitlist. Maybe next year.