Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me

Year 10, Day 223 - 8/11/18 - Movie #3,019

BEFORE: I've been taking a (more or less) direct route so far, as it happens, each act sort of links to the next - Clapton played with the Beatles, Chicago toured with Jimi Hendrix, and Keith Richards put a band together for Chuck Berry.  That was Phase 1 of the chain, though, and things are getting a little more fractured here in Phase 2.  Sure, Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga and George Michael all performed duets with Tony Bennett, but that's really a second-hand connection.  George Michael and Whitney Houston DID record a duet together, so I feel justified that I put their documentaries next to each other.  But now I have to link from pop music to country, and that's not easy.

Glen Campbell started his career as a session musician, playing on records for everyone from Elvis Presley to the Beach Boys, so you'd think that this recent doc might end up next to one of those acts, and maybe I should have found a better path to make that possible, but I needed some connection out of the Whitney film, and a connection to tomorrow's film, and this film provided both.  Naturally, I'm going to blame whoever didn't submit the proper credits to the IMDB, because if I'd known more about who appears in each doc, I could have worked out more logical links.  At least the credits list for today's film seems fairly complete already.

As it stands, I have to rely on archive footage of Johnny Carson tonight, as he carries over from "Whitney: Can I Be Me".  I'm not proud of it, but it satisfies the rules.  I'll get back to Clive Davis in a couple of days.

THE PLOT: As he struggles with Alzheimer's disease, country music legend Glen Campbell embarks on his farewell tour of the U.S.

AFTER: I went into this thinking I didn't know much about Glen Campbell's music, but then of course he turns out to be one of those acts where I knew more than I thought I did.  Just a few days ago, I got on the NYC subway and someone was blaring loud music, but not the kind you'd expect - instead of annoying rap or hip-hop, everyone on the car was being forced to listen to "Rhinestone Cowboy", in addition to John Denver's "Sunshine on my Shoulder" and other soft-rock classics.

I also went into this thinking this story was going to be unusual, and probably quite a bit sad - and of course it is, but it's more than that.  Maybe it was more uplifting when it was released in 2014, shortly after Campbell's farewell tour, but since he passed away just over a year ago (August 8, 2017) now it's DEFINITELY got to be really sad, right?  But it's both heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time, something I would have thought impossible.  As I've learned over the last couple of nights, record company executives are evil, heartless bastards, especially from George Michael's point of view, and there are clauses in contracts that FORCE artists to do publicity tours as well as performance tours, and if they don't, then they haven't fulfilled the terms of their contract, and I assume there are financial penalties for that.

Why else would a musician suffering from Alzheimer's feel the need to tour in support of his assumed-to-be final album?  Why not just claim medical reasons and bow out gracefully?  Why would Campbell's wife and kids decide to all go on tour with him, beyond the contractual obligations and potential financial benefit of a farewell tour?  (And to Campbell's credit, this was a serious farewell tour, not like Cher or Kiss or Meat Loaf, who have each had 4 or 5 farewell tours...)  Worse, what if he goes out on tour and can't remember his own songs, or what city he's performing in?  To be fair, though, I'm sure many bands have called out the wrong city's name after taking the stage.  ("Hello, Chicago!  Wait, what?  We're in Detroit?")

But on some crazy level, packing up the kids as a backing band and going on the road with his family makes some form of sense.  Fans turned out in droves once they learned about his diagnosis, and they all wanted to see him perform one last time, even if there was an occasional break in a song, or a rambling story between songs that went nowhere.  As one fellow country musician says in this film, "So he plays Wichita Lineman twice in one show, who gives a rat's ass?"  And performing was therapeutic, up to a point - for the majority of the tour, he really seemed to come alive, once he started to sing and play guitar.  He did "Dueling Banjos" with his daughter, and that's a tough, tough piece - you're just not going to get through that song without accessing all your skill.  Unless, of course, that's all sense memory for him at that stage.

Then there's the footage of Campbell during meetings with his neurologists, where he can't say what month or year it is, and can't remember a list of four words long enough to repeat them back.  And if that doesn't explain how debilitating Alzheimer's is, it gets much worse by the end of the film, when he looks at a family photo and can't say anyone's name, falling back on the generic "my daughter" and "my wife".  Well, to be fair, he had four wives and quite a few children over the years, but still, it's incredibly tragic to watch anyone disappear like this, bit by agonizing bit.

On the up-side, though, he was 75 at the time of the farewell tour, and not many 75-year olds would embark on a cross country tour, unless they were driving an RV to visit all of their grandchildren one last time.  He seemed physically fit, if not mentally (he was aided greatly by teleprompters to remember his lyrics) and then even cut one more album before he was too far gone.  He got to play at the Ryman Auditorium, Carnegie Hall and even the Library of Congress on that tour - and he didn't make it to 90-plus, but 81 isn't bad, all things considered.

Also starring Glen Campbell, Kim Campbell, Ashley Campbell, Cal Campbell, Shannon Campbell, Dave Kaplan, Julian Raymond, Bobbie Gale, Steve Ozark, Dante Rossi, Clancy Fraser, Jill Fraser, Scott Borchetta, Hal Blaine, Joe Osborn, Don Randi, John Carter Cash, Sheryl Crow, Larry Gatlin, Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Keith Urban, Jimmy Webb, John Paul White, Jay Leno, Steve Martin (last seen in "The Pink Panther 2"), Paul McCartney (last seen in "George Michael: Freedom"), Bruce Springsteen (last seen in "Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll"), The Edge, Chad Smith, Bill Clinton (last seen in "Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago"), Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Laura Savini, and archive footage of Willie Nelson, Taylor Swift, Brian Williams.

RATING: 6 out of 10 MRI brain scans

Whitney: Can I Be Me

Year 10, Day 222 - 8/10/18 - Movie #3,018

BEFORE: Damn it, I missed Whitney Houston's birthday by ONE DAY - she was born on August 9, 1963 so yesterday would have been her 55th birthday, if she hadn't made the terrible career move of dying in 2012.  And if I hadn't dropped in that film with Carl Reiner and Tony Bennett about people being active in their 90's, I would have hit it right on, too!  You know what, I'm counting it, because I started watching this film late on August 9, before midnight.  And yeah, I know there's another Whitney Houston documentary that got released very recently, early July I think, but I'm not going to the movie theater just to see that, not when I have access to this film at home. 

Whitney Houston carries over from "George Michael: Freedom", and so does at least one record company executive. 

THE PLOT: The story of Whitney Houston's extraordinary life and tragic death. 

AFTER: This one's from the same director as the documentary "Kurt & Courtney", Nick Broomfield.  It seems he's learned a lot in the 20 years since that other documentary, namely how to NOT make the film all about himself, and I approve of that.  He's nearly invisible here, and that may have more to do with the fact that this is mostly made up of archive footage of Whitney and her family and her entourage.  But in the interviews with her band members, friends and bodyguard you can't hear the questions being asked, and I think overall that's a better way to go.  And nobody's barging in to stores or businesses with a camera crew and being annoying. 

If I consider that my rockumentary is now in Phase 2, and I realize this is all very arbitrary, but let's just say that Phase 1 was all about the early days of rock music, the 1950's through the early 1970's, and focused on the biggest names of the time, and what substances they liked to ingest.  Phase 2 seems to be taking a slightly different track, though of course there were still drug users (Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and now Whitney) in the 1980's and 1990's, something being brought up now is a search for identity - who are these people as artists, and how does their professional image differ from what's going on behind the scenes?  Who were Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and George Michael as people, and how did that differ from their images, their on-stage personas.

Let's face it, with Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, there wasn't a lot of mystery, what  you saw on stage was pretty much representative of who they were in private.  But now we're in a whole topic with George Michael and Whitney Houston, and if I compare and contrast there's another one of those heads/tails things, like with Chuck Berry and Elvis.  George Michael was a white guy who had some success on the R&B charts, and was accused of appropriating black music, while Whitney was a black woman who had big success on the pop charts, and some people complained that her music sounded too white.  (Don't you know, someone's always going to complain about something...)

George Michael came out as gay (even if it was basically a fait accompli by the time he did) but during the 1980's, he reportedly slept with women, too, and obviously had a ton of female fans.  Now with Whitney there were plenty of rumors about her and friend/manager Robyn Crawford, whether Whitney was a confirmed bisexual or not is now a question for the ages, but it's certainly possible. Here we see Oprah asking the tough questions to Cissy Houston, about whether she would have approved if Whitney was gay, despite being married to Bobby Brown, and that's not something that Whitney's mother would have approved of, that's one big reason for this to be a secret.  (But even still, lack of evidence is not evidence.)

The interviews with Whitney's former bodyguard (and semi-inspiration for the film "The Bodyguard") are quite telling, though for legal reasons they had to block out many of the names in his reports filed with Houston's management company, so whatever he knows about Whitney's relationships remains unknown.  Me, I'd be more concerned about a report on her drug use where the words "marijuana" and "vocal cords" are misspelled as "marihuana" and "vocal chords" - how is anybody supposed to take that seriously?  Now, Whitney's management - she employed mostly family members, which as we've seen, is a terrible idea - discounted these reports too, but probably not because of the bad spelling.  No, we now know that once a singer becomes famous, there are several companies or organizations that benefit from them being constantly out on the road touring or in the studio, pumping out more albums, or doing promotion work.  It's a rigorous schedule that can be deadly if the star is not in the best of health, so it's a case where people will kill the golden goose in order to get more eggs.

And like in "Amy" we get to see Whitney here at her worst, when she's not giving the best performance, her make-up is running, or she's just on the verge of collapse.  By the turn of the millennium, there were reports of drugs being found in her luggage at airports, and Whitney was turning up late for interviews and rehearsals.  Footage here shows her rallying her dancers and musicians before a show, and calling upon Jesus to step in and give them all the strength they need - because that's so much easier than showing up for the show sober.  Her musical director also reports that they had to keep lowering the keys of the songs during rehearsal, so that she'd be more likely to hit the high notes during the show.  Then came a rehearsal for the Academy Awards where she was fired by Burt Bacharach, because she couldn't remember what song she was supposed to sing ("Over the Rainbow"), and sang a different one instead. Then on a TV special to celebrate 30 years of Michael Jackson's music, she looked extremely thin, and the rumors of drug use began again.  Finally in 2002 she admitted to drug use in a TV interview, confirming what everyone pretty much knew at that point. (Repeated in 2009 in another interview with Oprah in 2009...)

I'm not going to get a break from this topic, it seems, because I've got two more docs about deceased music stars coming up next, which will take me to the halfway point of my chain, but then I think I've got a few on the list that are about people who are still living, like Clive Davis and Bruce Springsteen.  Geez, I hope I didn't just put a bad hex on them.  Then in a little over a week I'll be covering films about Michael Jackson and James Brown, and that mark be the end of Phase 2.  Phase 3 could be a completely different animal, with films about the Beach Boys, the Who, Frank Zappa and David Bowie (or heck, maybe just more of the same...) but then I'll wrap things up with a look at heavy metal (Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Rush and more!).

Once again today, I've supplemented the IMDB listings for a music documentary - this one was lacking in terms of both interviewed subjects AND archive footage appearances, so there was a lot for me to do.

What makes keeping track of appearances more difficult is that for the purposes of an IMDB search, an appearance in a film via archive footage doesn't count as a real appearance, so the advanced search engine doesn't show them.  But I need to keep track for my purposes, so I have to that myself in a separate list, and then add them at the end of the year to acting roles - for, say, Kevin Costner.  Footage from the movie "The Bodyguard" appears in this documentary, so I say that he's also therefore IN this film, but the IMDB apparently disagrees.  Or at least it treats that appearance in a different way.  Meanwhile, if someone performs on a film's soundtrack, or has a song appear in a film, the IMDB counts that as an "appearance", even though that performs is not SEEN on film, and I don't count that.  So if I search my IMDB list for "appearances" by Whitney Houston I'm going to find every time someone used one of her songs in a film, and then I have to discount those results.  (I'll keep track of a performer's voice if it's used as the voice of a cartoon character, but not just a vocal appearance in a song, I've got to draw the line somewhere.) 

Also starring Kevin Ammons, Tony Anderson, Burt Bacharach, Michael Baker, Tina Brown, Doug Daniel, David Foster (last seen in "Now More Than Ever: The History of Chicago"), Sharlotte Gibson, Toni Gregory, Frances Grill, Cissy Houston (last seen in "Elvis Presley: the Searcher"), Gary Houston, Michael Houston, Pattie Howard, Mary Jones, Ellin Lavar, Wayne Lindsey, Kenneth Reynolds, David Roberts, Allison Samuels, Laurie Starks, Kirk Whalum, and archive footage of Bobby Brown, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Belinda Carlisle, Peter Cetera (also last seen in "Now More than Ever: The History of Chicago"), Kevin Costner (last seen in "Hidden Figures"), Katie Couric (last seen in "Sully"), Robyn Crawford, Clive Davis (also carrying over from "George Michael: Freedom"), Merv Griffin (also last seen in "Now More than Ever: The History of Chicago"), John Russell Houston Jr., Johnny Carson (last seen in "Lovelace"), Serge Gainsbourg, Don King, Julian Lennon (last seen in "Chuck Berry Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll"), Lou Rawls, Joan Rivers, Diane Sawyer (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Mike Tyson, Barbara Walters, Dionne Warwick, Barry White, Oprah Winfrey (last seen in "Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds").

RATING: 5 out of 10 Soul Train awards

George Michael: Freedom

Year 10, Day 221 - 8/9/18 - Movie #3,017

BEFORE: I'm back on the music beat - a couple more days of pop music, and then I can venture back to rock and roll.  And a couple of days with acts that became famous in the 1980's, then I can get back to the 1970's, but I'm comfortable in both of those decades.  Once I venture into 90's music or anything later than that, that's where I feel I'm a little out of my depth.  I feel like I know much more about someone like David Bowie or Mick Jagger than I do about Lady Gaga or Amy Winehouse.  But of course, the whole point of this is for me to learn more, regardless of the subject or the decade they performed in.

Tony Bennett carries over - that's four in a row for him.  It was very kind of him to record duets with Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and George Michael, which ultimately made this part of my chain possible.

THE PLOT: A frank and honest account of George Michael's professional life and career, made by the main himself with various artists adding to the narrative.

AFTER: Throughout this whole documentary chain, I've had a love-hate relationship with the IMDB.  Obviously that's what makes my linking possible, knowing in advance who's going to appear in each film, I could not have done this without that resource.  But many of the listings are incomplete, particularly when it comes to archive footage or otherwise "uncredited" appearances.  That's where I've been stepping in to try to pick up the slack, so if anyone comes along this way after me (and I don't know why they would) at least they'll have more of a road map, a more complete guide to who's in each movie.  Now, sometimes the omissions make sense, in a case like today's film somebody cleared put all the names of the people who were interviewed in the credits and on the IMDB.  It follows, those people spent time appearing on camera, so naturally the director or the production company would want to publicly thank them for their efforts in the credits on-screen and on the web.

But very few people whose images appeared in archive footage received credit - either someone didn't take the time to include them, or didn't feel the need because they weren't personally involved in the creation of the film.  And that explains why, despite appearing in every piece of footage in the first 10 minutes of this film, Andrew Ridgeley, the other half of the pop duo WHAM!, was not listed in the credits or in the IMDB.  I hope it's just an oversight, and not an intentional snub - imagine making a documentary about Simon and Garfunkel, spending the first 15 minutes on their time together as a duo, and then not putting Garfunkel anywhere in the credits, that would be unthinkable. So I've stepped in and submitted additional archive footage credits to the IMDB, not only Ridgeley's name, but also 19 other people, including famous duet partners like Aretha Franklin and Paul McCartney.  The full list hasn't appeared yet, but based on my track record from the last 2 weeks, I'm very hopeful that these wrongs will be made right.

Now, five people who DO get credit for appearing in this film are famous models - you might remember the famous video for the song "Freedom '90" that consisted solely of beauties like Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista lip-synching to the song, instead of George Michael doing that.  It certainly had a bunch of people in 1990 scratching their heads, because they might check out the video to see their favorite singer, and then they were presented with something entirely different.  (As a 21-year old man, I certainly wasn't complaining about seeing beautiful women for four minutes, but I really didn't understand why it was the way it was, either.)  The song was all about George struggling with his identity (no, not that one, his artistic identity) so it seemed weird that when given a chance to appear in the video for a song about that, he wasn't there at all, he refused to appear in the video.  But then again, he WAS in the video, they kept showing the same shot of him looking through a movie camera, as if he were directing the video, only he didn't direct the video, David Fincher did, and then there was an end credit that read "Directed by ???" so it seems the main intent was to confuse everyone.

All five models were interviewed (separately) for this film, and I have to say, I didn't understand the video then, and I still don't get it.  Somehow it was supposed to be sexy, but the fashions were all very weird, like a corset with motorcycle handlebars on it, and that made no sense.  And the models were strutting down this runway, then some of them were fighting, while others were singing in bedrooms or bathtubs, it was just all over the place.  It seemed like it might be trying to be futuristic, or at least progressive, but what's less progressive than treating women like sex objects or merely eye candy?  And then being interviewed all these years later, the models have nothing constructive to say about the experience, except to relate what exactly happened ("I was sitting in a bathtub, covered in glycerine...")  That's OK, honey, don't strain yourself trying to think about what it all meant.  Just sit there and look pretty.

Of course, now with some more background information, I understand that George Michael was feuding with Sony Music about what obligations he had to do to promote his work, because he felt that as a music creator, he had the right to dictate the way he could promote himself, and how much work that would entail.  So he did not agree to appear in his own music video (except there was footage of him in there, as I said, so I still don't understand it...) and suggested the models as an alternative.  Unfortunately, by not appearing he created a piece of film that then has no meaning at all.  It seems that he'd done so much work promoting his previous album that he wanted to pull back a bit, to keep from going insane.  The record company did not agree with his plan of promoting through non-promotion, the case ended up in court, with George Michael claiming that the standard record contract, by virtue of the clauses that dictate what a recording artist must do to promote an album, was a form of modern slavery.  Yeah, he lost that case, then had to buy himself back from Sony so that he could release more records on another label and have more artistic freedom.

The film also mentions the controversy that occurred when George Michael won a Grammy award (and a couple American Music Awards) for best R&B performance (Duo or Group) for a duet he recorded with Aretha Franklin, and it seems that no white man had ever won an R&B Grammy before, so the black community didn't take that well.  George fell back on the "I grew up listening to black music" line (known as the "Eric Clapton Defense") but still managed to piss off black artists, like Gladys Knight, who pointed out that it wasn't fair, because you don't see as many black artists achieving success on the "white" charts.  Oh, you mean like Michael Jackson?   This was a non-winning debate for all sides involved, because it just made people seem either petty or not apologetic enough.  It never works when you're a white guy and you claim some form of reverse racism is involved, you just sound like a crybaby.

(And if you've offended the black community before, by accepting an award traditionally won by only black people, maybe avoid using the term "slavery" later on when you sue your record company.  Just a thought...)

The best line of the whole film comes from interviewed subject Stevie Wonder, presumably when asked to weigh in on the controversy over George Michael winning an R&B Grammy, when he says, "Wait a minute, do you mean George Michael is WHITE?"  The most insightful comment on racism ends up coming from a man who literally cannot see the color of people's skin.  That's both funny and meaningful, we could all learn a lesson from that.  Why can't musicians be judged for their music, regardless of their color or any other issue?  Why does the record company have to pigeonhole everyone in order to market them?

Well, on the other hand, you're talking about a large corporation with many decades of experience in selling records, many people working on those issues with an eye on the marketplace, and maybe on some level they do know what they're talking about.  Yeah, maybe they should have given George Michael more artistic freedom and respected his right to not do interviews or appear in music videos. Or maybe they were on to something, and he should have just sucked it up, it's tough to say.  Sure, it stinks to have to do the same interview, answer the same questions, again and again for a large number of TV bubbleheads.  But at least the performer gets to control the narrative this way, they can choose which questions to not respond to, they can even come up with creative answers to bring about an intended result.

Here's what I would have recommended, back in what, 1990?  George Michael should have contacted his rep at Sony Music and said, "OK, I'll do the press interviews, because I really want to talk about my boyfriend, how he's the love of my life and my domestic partner, and how we would get married if it was only legal, and by the way, it's a shame that gay marriage is not legal, and efforts should be made to correct that, ASAP."  There's a fair chance that the Sony Music executives would have gotten back to him and said, "Well, this is a controversial subject matter, and we've decided that it would be better if you didn't do any interviews to promote the new album."  See, that way everybody wins!  The artist tried to fulfill his publicity obligations, but the record company waived their promotion demands, and the relationship between artist and management is maintained.

Because you can say whatever you want about the work produced during George Michael's contract with Sony, but at least I've HEARD of it.  I may not be a fan, but I know those songs, like "Freedom" and "Faith" and even "Kissing a Fool".  Everything after "Listen Without Prejudice", I haven't got a clue.  Gee, maybe a big record company does know something about successfully doing publicity, after all.  He released two albums on Virgin and Dreamworks labels, then went BACK to Sony for his final album - but I've never heard of anything from that album, either.  The problem with indie-type artistes when they work for major distributors (and I know this from working in indie animation) is that they always find some way to shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak, and not achieve mainstream success.

Like, my boss is off to L.A. this weekend to promote a movie that's opening in Santa Monica.  As a known animator and artist, he feels that he has to be there in person to greet the audience, introduce the film, and then lead a Q&A session after.  That's all well and good, but as his business manager, it falls on me to tell him that after he pays for his airfare, four nights hotel, and a car rental while he's in L.A., there's very little chance of making a profit from these screenings, not unless every screening is sold out every day for a week, and his cut from the theater somehow exceeds his travel expenses.  See, if you just look at the bottom line all the time, there are many things in the publicity world that don't make much sense, unless you factor in that all of those people he meets in person will feel more connected to him after meeting him, and after having a positive interaction they may be more likely to buy his movies in the future, whether on DVD or Netflix or in the theater.  That MIGHT make the trip worth it in the long run, but probably not on the balance sheet.  This is why we stopped going to San Diego Comic-Con, because outside of the publicity we got from being there, the convention, travel and shipping expenses were exceeding any profit from selling merchandise at the booth.

So at the end of the day, doing publicity really sucks, but nobody's come up with a better way to let people know about your product, whether it's an album, a film or a new toothpaste.  You've got to spend money (and time) to make money.  Complaining about that just isn't productive.

NP: What was up with that weird turntable (a Gyro SE, it seems) that was sitting next to all of the musicians being interviewed?  And then Stevie Wonder had some weird electronic instrument that allowed him to play along with it?  This might have been some strange sort of interviewing technique, but it was never explained, and I'd love to know what the heck was going on here.  Maybe the interviewed people were asked to play the record of George Michael's songs, and then tell whatever stories that the music evoked?  Why did the record have each person's name on it, were the song cuts different for each person?  Why did the record have to be on that strange platform, that made it look like a spinning cake?  My best guess is that this was some kind of experiment that just didn't pay off.

Also starring George Michael, Stevie Wonder, Elton John (last seen in "Gaga: Five Foot Two"), Mark Ronson (ditto), Nile Rodgers, Clive Davis (last seen in "Janis: Little Girl Blue"), Mary J. Blige, James Corden (last heard in "The Emoji Movie"), Liam Gallagher, Ricky Gervais (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Cindy Crawford (last seen in "54"), Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington, Emmanuelle Alt, David Austin, Tracey Emin, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Tatjana Patitz, Paul Russell, Tony Russell, Andy Stephens and archive footage of Andrew Ridgeley, Anselmo Feleppa, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin (last seen in "Elvis Presley: The Searcher"), Paula Abdul, Gladys Knight, Flavor Flav, Chuck D, John Lennon (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Paul McCartney (ditto), David Bowie (ditto), Freddie Mercury (last seen in "How the Beatles Changed the World"), Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor, Liza Minnelli, David Frost, David Geffen, Prince (last seen in "Graffiti Bridge"), Björk, Jellybean Benitez, Margaret Thatcher.

RATING: 5 out of 10 pairs of sunglasses

If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast

Year 10, Day 220 - 8/8/18 - Movie #3,016

BEFORE: OK, I realize this is a bit off-topic, but please bear with me.  The problem with watching so many films about rock stars in a row is what I've expressed - so many of them have burned out and died young, or at least the ones that people have made documentaries about.  I've covered every member of the "27 Club" and then some, and it's very troubling, depressing.  It's starting to affect me, knowing that all these people who were talented and famous couldn't keep their hands off the booze or the needles out of their arm.  Sure, there's been some balance achieved by watching films about walking dinosaurs like Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, but it's not enough.  I've peeked ahead at the schedule and there's more dead pop stars stacked up like firewood, just waiting for me.

So, what to do?  How do I keep my spirits up while mired in death and destruction, which seem to go hand in hand with the rock and roll lifestyle?  I look for an antidote - actually two antidotes, comedy and people with longevity.  After Tony Bennett turned up in the last two documentaries on Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga (and realizing he's in the next film also) I remembered that he also appeared in this documentary about people who are active in their 90's.  This just HAS to be the opposite of the "27 Club", it's the "90 Plus Club" - so I had this one down at the bottom of my list, with docs about Joan Rivers and Robin Williams (umm, yeah, more death and depression there...) so I'm moving this one up on the list in the hopes it's a very positive film, and thus I can achieve some balance.

Tony Bennett opens this film with his rendition of "The Best Is Yet to Come", so I think I'm making a smart move here.  It's helpful to know that I've got three extra slots before the end of the year, so I can drop this one in and now I only have to add two more horror films in October, and perhaps I'll finish 2018 right on schedule.   This one doesn't have to officially count as part of the Rockumentary chain, it's just a little break from it.  I'll get back to dead music stars tomorrow. 

THE PLOT: Carl Reiner tracks down several nonagenarians to show how the twilight years can be rewarding.

AFTER: They say in life you have to take the bad with the good - well, there's been much too much bad around here lately, so I needed something life-affirming, and this is going to have to do.  This is a portrait of some famous actors who are over the age of 90, but also some regular people who have also lived that long - a war veteran, a painter, a notable fashion designer and a few musicians (a pianist and also a harmonica player).  Society has told us that we need to retire at age 65, and that by the time we reach 70, we should be in a home somewhere, staring at the walls and complaining about the nursing home staff who we're SURE are stealing our loose change.  Well, screw that, because these geezers are dancing, doing gymnastics, performing at cafés overlooking Central Park, and they're keeping busy, despite the fact that they're essentially in EXTRA INNINGS time.

Surely there must be some collective wisdom to be mined from their experiences, right?  Tips on how to grow old gracefully, hell, I'd settle for tips on how to grow old at all, graceful or not.  Diet, exercise, daily aspirin - what's the magic formula?  Well, I guess that depends on who you ask, because there's no clear consensus on how these people GOT to be in their 90's, which makes the cynical part of me wonder if they were just lucky.  Sure, somebody's bound to make it to their 90's, I guess it happens to be THESE people.  But then again, the woman who started running when she was in her 50's seems to be a clear indicator that daily exercise should probably be part of everyone's plan.  Yeah, I'll get right on that when I finish all of my movies.  Seriously, though, I'm turning FIFTY later this year, and this does give me some hope.  If 90 is like the new 70, then maybe 50's the new 35 or something.

I've heard of ladies who live to be 105 or 106, and the news sometimes reports that their secret is a shot of whiskey every day, so there's hope beyond all the yogurt and granola, I think.  Of course, if I celebrate my birthday each year with a big plate of barbecued meat, I'm probably not doing myself any favors.  But who wants to live longer if you're not enjoying what you eat?  For that matter, who wants to live to be 90 if you have to waste so much time exercising in order to get there?  Nobody's dying words are ever "I should have exercised more..." so I tend to think the opposite holds true - you might live longer if you run five miles a day, but when you do the math, how much of your extra time was then wasted on running, instead of enjoying your life?

The title, of course, comes from the old joke about an elderly man's daily routine - "I get up, read the paper, check the obituaries, and if I don't see my name listed, I go back to bed."  I guess changing it to "eat breakfast" demonstrates a more positive attitude towards getting on with one's day.  But Reiner's got a great follow-up story in what happened one day when he checked the obits and he DID see his name there, or at least his picture.  Unfortunately, Reiner tips the joke by putting the follow-up story first, so that later in the film, when he tells the joke to an audience (at a special screening of his film "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid") then the joke doesn't land with the home audience.  I've got to call a NITPICK POINT here, they should have opened the film with Reiner talking to the audience and telling that joke in response to an audience member's question, then showed the follow-up story where he sees his own picture in the obituary column, then followed that with the opening credits.

And this celebration of longevity is marred a little bit by the realization that since this film was made, two of its subjects have passed away - Fyvush Finkel in 2016 and Patricia Morison in 2018 - Morison was in the last Sherlock Holmes film with Basil Rathbone in it, released in 1946!  The film also checks in with Kirk Douglas, who had a stroke 20 years ago but has not let that slow him down, he even performed a one-man show about his life, despite having difficulty talking.  Plus there are shout-outs to George Burns, Estelle Reiner and Jerry Seinfeld's mother, who are also no longer with us.

I wish that there could have been more in-depth analysis here about HOW these people managed to live so long, because if you just go by their interviews, you might draw the conclusion that they've stayed alive just by keeping busy, or by having a hobby or activity that gives them a reason to get up each morning.  How many of them have not smoked, drank heavily or not taken drugs?  Because after realizing how many drug users don't make it past 27, I'd prefer to make a comparison.  As it is, from all the Jewish nonagenarian comedians seen here, one might draw the conclusion that the secret to long life is eating kosher.  Eh, I'd give it a try, I love going to delis except I can't live without the Swiss cheese on my reuben sandwiches.

Maybe there's no special formula, except to have a positive attitude, keep busy and don't over-indulge on anything, except maybe dancing.  That seems to have worked for Dick Van Dyke, who's as limber now as ever, and in 2012 married a woman half his age.  (See, there's a reason to get up in the morning...)

So mission accomplished, I feel a little better now and I've achieved some kind of balance.  For every Jim Morrison, it's good to know that there's a Carl Reiner out there.  For every Janis Joplin, there's a Betty White.  For every Brian Jones there's a Stan Lee or a Norman Lear, and for every Jimi Hendrix there's a Dick van Dyke.  There's your new anti-drug campaign right there, you're welcome.

Also starring Carl Reiner (last seen in "Slums of Beverly Hills"), Mel Brooks (last heard in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"), Kirk Douglas (last seen in "Lust for Life"), Fyvush Finkel (last seen in "The Crew"), Norman Lear, Stan Lee (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Dick Van Dyke (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"), Betty White (last seen in "The Story of Us"), Patricia Morison (last seen in "Dressed to Kill"), Dave Grusin, Jerry Seinfeld, Iris Apfel, Alan Bergman, Dan Buettner, Irving Fields, Stan Harper, Ida Keeling, Shelley Keeling, Eric Marienthal, Jim "Pee Wee" Martin", Raymond Olivere, Colton Pence, Tao Porchon, George Shapiro, Harriet Thompson, Arlene Van Dyke, Terry Wollman, with archive footage of or cameos from Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Tom Scott, Nathan East, Queen Latifah (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"), Mary Tyler Moore, Jane Leeves, Valerie Bertinelli, Wendie Malick, Estelle Reiner and Yul Brynner. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 talk-show appearances

Gaga: Five Foot Two

Year 10, Day 219 - 8/7/18 - Movie 3,015

BEFORE: I know, I'm getting further and further away from rock music here, but I'm following the links and trying to clear my Netflix watchlist at the same time.  This is the most contemporary/current artist I'm going to cover, and from today I work my way back to rock music, but it seems I've got to go through pop music to get there.

Tony Bennett carries over from "Amy" and so does a record producer who was seen in yesterday's film working with Amy Winehouse.

THE PLOT: This documentary goes behind the scenes with pop provocateur Lady Gaga as she releases a new album and prepares for her Super Bowl halftime show.

AFTER: The good news is that Lady Gaga is 32 now, so she's escaped membership in the "27 Club" (though she makes reference in this film to going through alcohol and drug issues) and maybe she's got her head screwed on straight and may be with us for a long while.  The film follows her as she prepares to release an album named after and dedicated to her late aunt and also goes through negotiations and rehearsals for her performance at the Super Bowl in early 2017.

But deep down, she's just a regular person, it's very important that this message comes across.  A normal person with a few million dollars, who's being courted by Bradley Cooper to appear in his remake of "A Star Is Born", and who does a guest-star appearance on "American Horror Story".  Or perhaps she's exerting a lot of money and effort to make sure that she's portrayed as a regular person, only regular people don't have documentary crews following them around as they prepare to perform for an audience of thousands in a stadium and millions more on TV.  And that's the seductive nature of fame right there, trying to maintain some kind of balance while everyone around you keeps telling you how special you are, enough that you might start to believe it yourself.

Having a throng of fans waiting outside your record studio, all looking for a selfie with a star, has to affect one's self-image, that's all I'm saying.  I'm guilty of it myself, I keep the photos on my phone of the three biggest stars I've ever managed to pose with, only one of them is "Weird Al" Yankovic, and that only impresses people in certain social circles.  (But when it does, it REALLY does...)

Gaga has her meltdowns, like when someone changes the script before her TV appearance, or changes the inner lining of the jacket of her costume, so it doesn't feel familiar when she puts it on, God forbid.  And even though she loves and admires Madonna, she's got a beef with her for not telling her directly what she doesn't like about her, apparently Madonna went to the press and said why she doesn't like Lady Gaga, instead of saying it to her face.  Lady Gaga would NEVER do that, only by telling a documentary crew what she doesn't like about Madonna, and not saying that directly to Madonna, she's sort of guilty of doing the exact same thing.

Making an album is a personal journey, one Gaga equates to "open heart surgery", but I assume she's being metaphorical here.  You've got to watch out for irony, though - Amy Winehouse sang a song about not going to rehab, and then later that became an issue.  So in a few years if we see Gaga hospitalized with heart problems, wouldn't that quote from this film be a fun clip for someone to find?

I've got to question some of the editing choices here, like when Gaga is greeting the fans outside her recording studio, I'm not sure that's the best place to drop in a montage of her most outrageous red carpet outfits, like the time she wore a dress that was made of meat.  (Now, me, I would have suggested she dial it back a bit, and wear a skirt steak skirt, but that would be just for the great pun opportunity.  I guess you've got to go all the way and make that a full dress.)

I don't follow the gossip magazines like "People" and "Newsweek" so when Gaga made references to splitting up with her fiancé, I had to find out who that was from the internet.  She refers to having her heart broken three times, and it wasn't very hard to learn who those three people are - hey, that's life in the fame bubble, your whole existence is put on display for everyone to comment on or speculate about.  That's the price you pay for having 29 million Instagram followers these days.  Another musician depicted here can't imagine having that many followers, and therefore that much responsibility.  Clearly it comes with some kind of price, whether that manifests itself as stress pain or relationship difficulty, but nobody else is going to let a famous person off of the merry-go-round, only the individual herself can do that.

But, as I've seen many times before in these rock documentaries, particularly with bands like the Stones and the Grateful Dead, once you've bought the house in Malibu and built up a company around your music brand, plus a charitable foundation and also a fashion line, it's very difficult to take any time off, because so many people are then depending on you for a steady income.  The trick is either finding a balance, or a way to keep those companies going if you want to take a few months off, even if it's for valid medical reasons (much is made here of Gaga's bad hip...).

Lady Gaga was the first woman to have four number one albums in the 2010s decade - so it can't be all bad, right?  And she's even got two varieties of ferns named after her, because their rolled-up leaves resemble a monster's hand, and her fans are known as "little monsters".  Plus scientists have also named an extinct mammal and also a parasitic wasp in her honor, so that's something.  I remember reading the other day that Jim Morrison has an extinct lizard named after him, since he was sometimes called "The Lizard King".  Because paleontologists are known for their sense of humor, right?

Also starring Lady Gaga (last seen in "How the Beatles Changed the World"), Mark Ronson (carrying over from "Amy"), Cynthia Germanotta, Joe Germanotta, Natali Germanotta, Bobby Campbell, Florence Welch, Sandra Amador, Michael Bearden, BloodPop, Andrea Gelardin, Marlene Gerais, Ashley Gutierrez, Hamish Hamilton, Ruth Hogben, Richy Jackson, Nick Movshon, Brian Newman, Darryl Pinckney, Shantiel Alexis Vazquez, with cameos from George Bush, Barbara Bush, Donatella Versace and Elton John.

RATING: 5 out of 10 NFL jerseys

Amy

Year 10, Day 218 - 8/6/18 - Movie #3,014

BEFORE: By the end of this week, I'll be about halfway through with the music documentaries - now I can't wait to get back to narrative material again.  Hell, I can't wait for the end of the year, I came close today to figuring out the chain that's going to get me there.  I think I can get to October, I think I've got a good selection of horror movies to draw from (though I'm going to hold off until I can determine what TCM's horror theme is going to be this year - best not to commit to zombies or vampires just yet, not until I figure out which way they're going to zig, so I can zag.).

And then once October's over, I think I have a linking chain that will get me from there to a Christmas movie.  One small problem, the chain is three movies short right now, so I either have to hope a couple somethings come along that can drop in somewhere, or maybe I just need to increase the number of October films from 20 to 23.  Tomorrow I'll take a closer look at the links between my horror movies to see if that might be easy to do.

For now, Dave Grohl carries over via archive footage from "Hype!" and so does one other famous Dave (see below).  

THE PLOT: Archival footage and personal testimonials present an intimate portrait of the life and career of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse.

AFTER: A couple of months ago, after seeing a movie (let's say it was "Solo") with a friend, he expressed envy over the fact that I've got my movies organized, and I watch one almost every night.  Apparently he felt that he'd fallen too far behind in his own movie-watching, and wished he could do what I do.  I told him that he should get started, make a list and then chip away at it, he didn't even have to do what I do, which is make all my movies link together, just even watching randomly might give him a sense of accomplishment.  Like, I can attest that you'll never FINISH this process, but at least you can feel like you're not falling further behind every day.

There are also, however, many reasons to not do what I do, and one of them is that I can get into one of these funks where I watch too many films in a row on a particular subject, or I find myself watching too many dramas, too much sci-fi, too much of whatever in a row is not good.  And so I've reached the point where it's become much too much with the rock music chain - too much drugs, too much death, and it's not as much about the music as perhaps it should be.  It's not really my fault that I'm in a funk, obviously part of the problem is that filmmakers have chosen to favor the deceased members of the music community, partially because since their stories are OVER, it's a great time to jump on board and tell it, because there will be an ending, the story will feel complete, etc.  Perhaps these stories also function as sort of cautionary tales, like "Be careful not to become too famous too quickly, or if you do, try not to spend so much of your newfound money on drugs, because we all know where that leads."

Really, it's the same story, night after night - the names and the details change, of course, but is Amy Winehouse's story really that different from Janis Joplin's?  We've got the childhood insecurities, the voice that gets everyone's attention shortly after cutting a record, and the chasing after love, in this person, then THAT person, while deep feeling like they don't deserve it.  And then there's drugs and alcohol to take the pain away, and enable the performances to continue, all the while eating away at their self-control.  I'm just weary of it all.

Questions can be raised, of course, about who's really to blame, whether it's the artist or the management, or the record label, or the paparazzi and the tabloids, or the fans with short attention spans who are hungry for more material and threatening to go on to the next big thing if they don't get it, or the dealers, and in this case, blame's even thrown on Amy's parents for not instilling some sense of discipline in her when she was a child.  Because it turns out that if you give a kid whatever he or she wants, you could create an adult who will find a way to get whatever he or she wants, even if those things are not very good for them.

I don't mean to preach here, I enjoy drinking too much and over-eating myself, though I know those activities are potentially dangerous in both the short and long terms.  I get to consider myself drug-free since college, and even though the marijuana laws are getting drastically slackened, and I could even get on a plane quite easily and visit a state with legal weed, I've held off.  Because maybe I shouldn't start chasing that high in the first place, as there's plenty of empirical evidence regarding where it could lead.  We look to the fallen celebrities to remind us that money can't buy happiness, but it can buy drugs, and that's not the same thing.  Therefore, drugs can't make you happy, then can only help you NOT feel sad or depressed, and that's not the same thing either.  Happiness must come from within, and if famous people aren't all happy, then what's the point of being famous?

I remember when Amy Winehouse broke big with "Rehab", which I guess was a bit of a cheeky fun song, then it was an ironic song, and then of course later it wasn't funny at all, it was way too on-the-nose.  Can we possibly ever enjoy this song again, with someone who later died of an overdose saying she didn't want to go to rehab, no, no, no?  I'm glad this documentary saw fit to show most of her lyrics visually, either by showing us floating words on the screen (a more sophisticated version of "Follow the bouncing ball...") or by showing us her original hand-written notes for the song.  They kind of had to, because her thick accent and odd musical slurring would otherwise have made it impossible for me to know what she was singing about.

The most telling footage is possibly from her recording a duet with Tony Bennett, where Amy is not only nervous and star-struck, but also terrified of screwing up the song in his presence.  That tells us all we need to know about her, that she gave off this image of being a tough, brash, strong-willed individual, but the truth was very far from that.  Her husband and father take the most hits here, on for turning her on to drugs and the other for keeping her on the touring hamster wheel when some time off could have benefited her more.  After that, there's a very fine line walked here, with decisions being made to show Winehouse while drunk or stoned, and some of the candid photos taken while she was high might have crossed over the line into exploitation themselves.  I guess I see why they were included, but I'm questioning that decision at the same time.

Also starring Mitch Winehouse (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Blake Fielder-Civil (ditto), Lucian Grainge (ditto), Janis Winehouse, Raye Cosbert, Nick Shymanksy, Tyler James, Juliette Ashby, Lauren Gilbert, Blake Wood, Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), Pete Doherty, Tony Bennett (last seen in "Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars"), Mark Ronson, Salaam Remi, Andrew Morris, Cristina Romete, Chip Somers, Sam Beste, Dale Davis, Shomari Dillon, Phil Meynell, Monte Lipman, Guy Moot, Nick Gatfield, Darcus Beese, Ahmir-Khalib Thompson (aka Questlove), with archive footage of Amy Winehouse (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), David Letterman (also carrying over from "Hype!"), Chris Taylor, Ian Barter, Garry Mulholland, Jonathan Ross, Bobby Womack, Tim Kash, Cynthia Winehouse, Russell Brand (last heard in "Despicable Me 2") Jay Leno, Terry Richardson, Steve Kandell, Alex Foden, Natalie Cole (last seen in "Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars"), Beyoncé (last seen in "How the Beatles Changed the World") Rihanna, Jay-Z, Frankie Boyle, Graham Norton, Reg Traviss, Alicia Keys. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 tabloid photographers

Hype!

Year 10, Day 217 - 8/5/18 - Movie #3,013

BEFORE: Yes, I realize there's a more recent documentary about Kurt Cobain, the "Montage of Heck" documentary that did play at Sundance a couple of years back, but since I didn't miss it there (because I didn't attend) I don't feel the same sort of urgency to watch that one.  There's no "call to action" for me, to make up for a past incident, plus I think one movie about Cobain is enough, even if that one did perhaps distort the facts about Cobain's suicide - at least some were discounted by ANOTHER documentary later on, it seems.  Nope, if the Beatles get three documentaries and the Stones get three and Hendrix gets two, Cobain gets one.  Look, he's still going to make the year-end countdown with three appearances, I just don't care enough about his music to give him another slot.

Cobain carries over to this documentary, at least he appears in archive footage.  This is one of those films that's technically in my collection and I've never watched it because I forgot about it - I taped it off cable and put it on DVD, must have been in 2005 or 2006, because my wife likes Pearl Jam, and it seemed to be about that whole scene.  I only remembered about it again because I was putting this chain together, after I remembered about "Kurt & Courtney", and it seemed like it might help me with the linking, and sure enough, I was right.  Though I suppose that if I hadn't remembered about it, I could have just skipped it and linked from "27: Gone Too Soon" right to tomorrow's film.  But it's better to be inclusive, right?

THE PLOT: Documentary covering the growth and subsequent overexposure of the Seattle "grunge" music scene in the early '90s.

AFTER: Back in college, one of my roommates ran a music 'zine from our dorm room, so every few months his corner of the room would be stacked with a few thousand issues, which he then had to truck around to various record stores and head shops in NYC to get rid of, a few dozen at a time.  This also led to the occasional band being interviewed in our room, or sleeping on the floor.  I don't recall any of the names of the bands, but I remember cartoonist Pete Bagge trashing me in an interview based solely on the posters on the wall near my bed, but then when my roommate said I also read "Neat Stuff", immediately he changed course and said I was cool.  (I know I've still got that issue in my possession somewhere...). Back then the big local NYC band was Yo La Tengo, but the band made up of students that lived in my dorm was called Hypnolovewheel.  I want to say that the band Firehose slept on our floor, or maybe it was Firehouse?  Anyway, the zine would feature cartoons from people like Matt Groening, and come with a small vinyl record inside, with tracks from Pavement or The Mekons, and the last I'd heard of that roommate, he'd made his way out to Seattle, possibly right around the time that the music scene was really starting to heat up there.  Suddenly I've got the urge to track him down, though we haven't spoken in 30 years...

I sort of consciously jumped over 1980's music as well as the rest of the 1970's, and skipped ahead to the '90s, but I'm going to work my way back, I swear.  I'm going to cover a lot of different musical artists here in the second third of the chain, although there will still be some classic rock like the Eagles and Springsteen, and then the final third will focus on whatever's left, from the Beach Boys to The Who to David Bowie, and then transition to some heavy metal to finish things up.  I just couldn't find a way to do everything chronologically, because that would have meant ending with the most contemporary artists in my chain like Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga, and there just wasn't a way back to narrative movies from there.  So I've got to bounce around a little in time to cover the bulk of post-rock music history.  (You may claim that rock is still alive, but I've yet to find any evidence to support that.  Sure, I love classic rock, but after so many funerals, it's barely hanging on...)

As a result, though, this grunge thing just isn't my scene.  It didn't speak to me back in the early 90's because I was still working my way through the classic rock catalog, learning all that I could about the music of the 1960's and 70's, mostly because I was a teenager in the 80's and in high school I listed to bands like Def Leppard, the Cars and ZZ Top.  So I had a lot of catching up to do in the 90's, and I think that's when I stopped listening to anything contemporary.  I regarded the music of the 90's as really stupid, and I didn't think it could hold a candle to the work of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and I still stand by that.  Plus I was really busy trying to find a steady gig in the film industry, so I didn't have much time to listen to new music, anyway.  I followed my bliss and then years later when I could afford to go to rock concerts, it was the older acts on the nostalgia circuit that I wanted to see - Boston, Journey, Hall and Oates, Styx, Foreigner, Chicago and REO Speedwagon.  (All of whom were technically producing new material, only in concert people only wanted to hear the classics...).

Bottom line, I'm really out of my depth here, ignorant of what went down in Seattle in the late 80's/early 90's, but it seems like this documentary could have just listed names of bands for 90 minutes straight, and would have run out of time.  Hundreds of bands formed in that area, if not thousands, and when Nirvana hit, even the ones that had moved to L.A. or San Francisco started moving back.  It must have been like Liverpool after the Beatles broke, or Detroit after Motown became a thing, or San Francisco in 1969, just a case of the location, culture and talent converging to  create something of a glut on the market.  And footage of Nirvana's first performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is shown here, it's kind of like the Cavern Club footage of the Beatles, only for Generation X.

But I do understand the impact of the climate on the grunge movement - what is there to do in Seattle when it rains, except to stay inside and learn how to play guitar?  I'm more familiar with the scene in Portland, Oregon, which seems to have produced more than its fair share of animators and cartoonists, like Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, the late John Callahan, and others whom I've worked for or with.  In Portland people just decided to stay inside and draw, rather than play music.

But what happened to grunge?  Did it just become so integrated, so co-opted by big business selling plaid shirts and wool hats that it just dissolved into the mainstream?  Or did people get tired of dancing in mosh pits and punching each other out - did those concert-goers all get steady jobs where showing up the next morning with a black eye would be bad for their careers?  Or did the grunge kids somehow morph into the hipsters of today, famous for rejecting anything that is enjoyed by the masses, including music?  It's tough to say.

Or, maybe after the deaths of Kurt Cobain, those two guys from Alice in Chains, and more recently Chris Cornell, it became just as sad to listen to grunge as it is to listen to classic rock?

Also starring Eddie Vedder (last heard in "Into the Wild"), Mike McCready, Chris Cornell, Nils Bernstein, Art Chantry, Jack Endino, Steve Fisk, Frank Harlan, Daniel House, Megan Jasper, Calvin Johnson, John Nelson, Bruce Pavitt, Charles Peterson, Jonathan Poneman, Martin Rushent, Susan Silver, Susie Tennant, Mike Vraney, Blake Wright, and members of the bands Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, The Melvins, The Young Fresh Fellows, The Posies, Screaming Trees, The Supersuckers, Seaweed, 7 Year Bitch, Hammerbox, Gas Huffer, The Fastbacks, Coffin Break, TAD, The Gits, Love Battery, Flop, Mono Men, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Zipgun, Hovercraft, Blood Circus, The Walkabouts, Dead Moon, Crackerbash and archive footage of Dave Grohl (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Krist Novoselic (ditto), Jerry Cantrell, Layne Staley, Mike Starr, Kurt Loder, Ron Reagan Jr., David Letterman, Calvert DeForest, Adam Sandler (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)", Rob Schneider (last heard in "Norm of the North"), Chris Farley, Emilio Estevez (last seen in "Bobby"), and Andy Rooney.

RATING: 3 out of 10 stage dives