Black Muddle: Until The Light Takes Us @ YBCA
July 7, 2009
Making a documentary is a delicate balancing act, and the inexperience of first-time filmmakers Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell is palpable as they attempt the definitive black metal doc. The story of Norway’s fratricidal, arson-happy music scene is well known to some, and Aites and Ewell were wise to go right to the source, relocating to Oslo and securing unprecedented access to the genre’s major players. They decided to let their subjects do the talking, weaving the harrowing story through accented anecdotes and cobbled-together footage, avoiding heavy-handed voiceover. For veteran directors, this might well have been the right choice, but Until the Light Takes Us is frustratingly uneven, abdicating the responsibility of theme and narrative in favor of reverent, scattershot sense-impressions that are as unsatisfying as they are thought-provoking.
The film is arranged around interviews with Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, drummer and mastermind behind the influential band Darkthrone, and Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, creator of Burzum and perpetrator of many of the heinous crimes that make black metal’s early-90′s milieu so infamous. Fenriz is an affable misanthrope, articulate if digressive, and he is the source of the best interview fodder, though his most piquant observations are given no more weight than interminable shots of him reflectively sipping beer. Vikernes, interviewed in his stunningly commodious Norwegian prison cell, has the clear-eyed surety of a sociopath, expounding eloquently on the alienation and crackpot philosophy that drove him to create jarring, lo-fi heavy metal, then burn down irreplaceable 11th century churches, then stab his friend in the skull.
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One night only at the Red Vic: American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art
June 20, 2009
American Artifact world premieres tonight with two showings at the Red Vic Theatre on Haight Street, 5pm and 7pm.
If only everything about this movie were as cool as that Cheetah wearing sunglasses. Director Merle Becker’s debut documentary has its heart in the right place, and the filmmaker’s passion for posters bleeds from every frame, but American Artifact fails at the crucial task of transmitting this enthusiasm to its audience. Becker thinks we might be made interested in rock posters, and, indeed, we might, but her answer to the question “why should I be interested in rock posters?” seems mostly to consist of “hey, check out this really cool rock poster!” Shirking the documentarian’s role as journalist and cultural historian, the director instead concatenated something closer to a fan film, pitching softball questions to artists she transparently reveres.
In the early going, the film is not helped by one of the lamest set-ups in documentary history. Paraphrased, it goes something like this: “I bought a book about rock posters, and I liked it.” Drawn into the flourishing underground culture of rock poster memorabilia, Becker spent several years traveling the country and interviewing her ink-spattered idols, who expound gamely but tepidly about getting to do what they love, making art on behalf of their favorite bands, with unfettered creative license and a small but steady income. [More...]
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Seoul Brothers: Go-Go 70′s at the SFIFF
May 18, 2009
When writer/director Ho Choi released his rollicking rock and roll picture in Korea in 2008, it debuted during trying economic times, not making the impact it perhaps deserved to make. One hopes that increasing exposure at international festivals will bring it to a wider and more enthusiastic audience. The film, originally titled Gogo Chilship, could be described as a Korean version of The Commitments, Alan Parker’s widely successful story of a group of Dublin musicians who form a soul band. This comparison would be reductive, to be fair, and Choi deserves credit for crafting a film that deploys a number of “band on the run” tropes while establishing a unique cultural context that provides a good deal of added vigor. Adapted from the true story one of the country’s most successful 70′s acts, The Devils, the film is a window into a postwar Korea unfamiliar to many U.S. viewers.
Sang-gyu (Seung-woo Cho) is a struggling musician in a provincial town, playing tiny bars that cater U.S. servicemen from a nearby Army base. Obsessed with American music, Sang-gyu is a prickly, erratic character, aloof and arrogant but somehow sympathetic. He treats his friend and former lover, a similarly music-obsessed waitress named Mimi (Min-a Shin) like dirt, despite the great pains she takes to support his career. One night, he and his two backing musicians join forces with a rival group led by guitarist Man-sik (Seung-wu Cha), forming a six-man band, The Devils, who bond over their love of the pirated “black music” that is gradually gaining ground in a country some 15 years behind the pop curve.
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Rock and Kidney Pie: D Tour at the SFIFF
April 27, 2009
D Tour opens with the familiar trappings of a band-on-the-road movie–we meet drummer Pat Spurgeon in the practice space, tweaking his drumset as his band, SF indie-heroes Rogue Wave, prepares to set off on tour. Well into middle age and sporting a riotous caucausian ‘fro, Spurgeon is the picture of a friendly, articulate indie musician, talking earnestly about how his lack of a “back-up plan” keeps him committed to his musical dream.
Having shrugged off penury and failure in the past, Spurgeon finally feels at home in Rogue Wave, poised to hit the big time with their clever, catchy indie-pop. Suddenly, however, he is devastated by news of the worse kind: His kidney is failing. Diagnosed with kidney problems as a child, Spurgeon received a transplant some fifteen years ago, allowing him to live his life in comparative stability. Now, the first replacement kidney is no longer working, and he will need a new transplant, landing him on a donor list some six years long. He’s about to leave on the biggest tour of his life, and he will need dialysis, up to four times a day. [More...]
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Metal on Metal
April 24, 2009
Anvil! The Story of Anvil is the kind of movie people pregame for. I know because some dude blew chunks all over the floor at Slim’s, hastily erected rows of folding chairs and a teeming mass of heavy metal cinemaniacs denying him the solace of the bathroom stall. Anvil is a little-known Canadian metal band, an acknowledged influence of the 80′s “Big Four” (Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer) that never really got their due, never really hit the big time. Screwed over by labels, promoters, and Lady Luck (perhaps the biggest offender), they toil in obscurity, trudging through the Ontario snow to work thankless day jobs and dreaming of the heavy metal big time that, in their graying, balding state, seems increasingly unlikely.
The stars of the movie are Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, two nice Jewish boys who bonded as teenagers over visions of rock and roll stardom, visions that they are constitutionally incapable of giving up. Despite the misgivings of their families (who provide hilarious, skeptical commentary throughout), they first appear in director Sascha Gervasi’s movie ready to give it one last go, with a big tour of Europe lined up–a chance to storm the gates of the world’s metal stronghold, and finally bask in the limelight they’ve worked so hard for.
Kudlow is a inimitable fellow, a buffoonish frontman with a showman’s soul and an inexhaustible well of optimism. His philosophy of life and music is simple, delivered with an earnestness that belies its essential hilarity: “it could never be worse than the way it is now.” Reiner, his opposite number, is more level-headed, though no less committed, and his soft-spoken caveats often make him the target of Kudlow’s bromantic ire. [More...]
