Lemmy - The Movie

Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to get a peek at "Lemmy" the new documentary about Lemmy Kilmister the singer / icon for heavy metal legends Motorhead, courtesy of the fabulous Boston Independent Film Festival.

Packed with interviews from a wide array of music celebrities (Joan Jett, Henry Rollins, Dee Snyder, Metallica, Mick Jones, Ozzy, and assorted members of Hawkwind and The Rockin' Vickers, Lemmy's early musical projects) about their time spent with Lemmy one on one, or describing how he's impacted their lives from afar, the film does a good job at establishing its subject as an incredibly potent figure in rock and roll history. Visits to Lemmy's (rent controlled, stuffed with freaky stuff, and not particularly tidy) apartment, live footage, and hearing about his worldview from the man himself ("I'm not a nazi. Nothing could be further from the truth. If the Israeli Army had the coolest uniforms in the world I'd wear them!") rounds out the the bill of creating a cogent and enrapturing portrait of surely the most interesting man (nee senior citizen) in metal today.

Sadly, as interesting as the story and subject are, the film does have some editing / narrative problems. It may be that there are just too many interesting Lemmy tidbits to fit in one film, but that said, the whole thing needs to be about a half hour shorter.

Seeing the film in a room of about 400 other metal maniacs made it easy to understand what fans would like to see cut from the film - to start, lengthy interviews with Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, who prattles on about 'integrity' and 'being genuine' while showing he hasn't got 1/3 of a clue about what he's talking about. The crowd booed and grumbled when Grohl and an array of other "artistes" with little cred spoke about their thoughts about Lemmy. But then again, when you're Lemmy, the whole rest of the world looks pretty uncool by comparison. Better to just shut up and rock.

My Bloody Valentine 3D - not the same as My Bloody Valentine

A common problem seems to have struck my friend Kelly (and Phil, and others)...

"I was watching tv this week, when a movie commercial came on and I'm sitting there going 'Wait, why are people screaming? What's with the stuff being thrown at you' etc before the wheels in my head started to turn and I realized that "My Bloody Valentine 3-D" is not in fact a concert film of the band My Bloody Valentine - it's a horror movie."

If only My Bloody Valentine the band were in the movie My Bloody Valentine 3-D, alas. But to tide one over here's a very old MBV single from our friends at Little Hits. Cool beans.