Tribeca Update #1:
Johnny Guitar
By Aaron Hillis
Posted April 24, 2006, 12:57pm EST
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| Rob Zombie and Eddie Vedder in Too Tough To Die, a film documenting the 2004 tribute to punk legends The Ramones. |
Tribeca madness begins tomorrow and there's no better way to inaugurate a festival than by raising your lighter to a balcony-shakin' six-string anthem. Of the various concert documentaries screening this year, Too Tough to Die is the most justified in not giving viewers any context to its subject's relevance in the rock pantheon. That's because we're talking about punk revolutionaries The Ramones, whose gabba gabba heyday was celebrated in 2004 with an all-star lineup of tribute artists on one L.A. stage. Cutting between anecdotal interviews and performances from greying icons Henry Rollins, Steve Jones, X, The Dickies, and emcee Rob Zombie, director Mandy Stein's tender document of that 30th anniversary show is too gushy to make new converts, but will definitely get the fans' boots stomping. The encore ends on a melancholic chord, however; co-founding bandmate Johnny Ramone succumbed to prostate cancer just two days after the event, while the film was still being made. As the third original Ramone to pass away, the familiar speeches at his memorial service (excluding Nicolas Cage's heartfelt and way-hammy sermon) can be read as an obituary to both Johnny and punk nostalgia itself, as if its aging survivors are officially burnt out on venerating such a long-dead era.
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| In the hip hop concert doc Rock the Bells, 10,000 fans gather in hopes that the Wu-Tang Clan will reunite. |
That same year in San Bernardino, DIY concert promoter Chang Weisberg staked his family, mortgage and budding reputation on producing a once-in-a-lifetime event that seemed doomed to fail. Named for the festival itself, Casey Suchan and Dennis Henry Hennelly's outright exhilarating Rock the Bells isn't so much about the music, but Chang's unrelenting pursuit to reunite all nine members of hip hop supergroup The Wu-Tang Clan. Renowned for years as regular no-shows, each rapper's potential arrival becomes a rich well of suspense, leading up to a climax you just can't make up: with over 10,000 fans ready to rush the stage, can the now-deceased Ol' Dirty Bastard be shaken from his crack-induced stupor to keep Chang true to his promise? The reunion melodrama alone is plenty fodder for one documentary, yet the multi-camera procedural neatly ties together worthwhile subplots and all the major players' roles with hilarious, real-time candor. Between a production manager going ballistic over an opening act's neverending last song, special guest Redman refusing to talk on-camera until he gets some "herb," and a lightweight security team who can't control the overcrowded venue, Rock the Bells doesn't just delve behind the scenes; it makes a showstopping guest-MC out of each crazy new obstacle.
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| A scene from Brothers of the Head, a mock-rockumentary about conjoined rockers. |
From a story of Chang to one of Chang and Eng, a moody pair of conjoined twins turn the '70s British glam scene on its noggin in the gonzo mock-rock-doc Brothers of the Head. Directed by Terry Gilliam cohorts Louis Pepe and Keith Fulton (Lost in La Mancha) and adapted by Tony Grisoni (Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas), this expressionistic and weirdly poignant drama chronicles the meteoric arc of unlikely rockers Tom and Barry Howe (Harry and Luke Treadaway). Born attached by a slab of abdominal skin, the brothers grim are sold into boy-band slavery by their dad, smacked around by a manager, filmed daily by a DA Pennebaker wannabe, then form crucial freak-punk act The Bang Bang. Sex, drugs, romantic rivalry and downfall later ensue. Since the source material is a novel by Brian Aldiss (who appears in meta-interviews to forgive the discrepancies in his own "non-fiction" version), the new faux-verité concept yields interesting results with a straight face. Callously whored out as a novelty, the brothers prove pretty content to cash in on the deal, and the scrutiny of their two-way exploitation is subtly revealed through gestures, reaction shots and clever editing. What separates this fun diversion from a cult classic is the fact that the directors' hands aren't visible enough, so it's hard to tell when clichéd documentary techniques are missteps or intentional genre parodies. Regardless, you'll be conjoined to your seat whenever Ken Russell comes in to discuss clips from his abandoned biopic Two-Way Romeo.
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