CRIMSON FEST - WEEK TWO

Welcome back to Crimson Fest!! Thank you to those who read part one, and let’s waste no time. Here’s what I watched in Week Two!! (For those who haven’t read Part One, you can find it here.)

The Nowhere Inn: My first rewatch of the month, let’s go!! Starring multi-instrumentalist and singer Annie Clark, aka, St. Vincent, this movie starts off as a concert film and documentary. It then turns into a mockumentary, and then escalates into being a full on art house film. While it’s pretty uneven, I think the genre shifts work. The plot is about Clark, as well as her friend/director Carrie Brownstein, both dealing with an identity crisis. For Clark, it’s about who St. Vincent actually is. For Brownstein(her as a character, she actually directed the movie), it’s her struggling with what type of movie she’s making. She just wants to help her best friend make a movie, but also have it be interesting. All of the humor and drama centers around that, and I think it mostly works. It starts to lose its mind towards the end, though.

It has grown on me more since the first time I watched it, now that I’ve gotten closer to her music. I feel like this is one more for the fans. So, I can’t really say I recommend it to people that haven’t listened to much of her music. I will say though the best part is the song she works on throughout the movie. The song “The Nowhere Inn” is really good, and I can fully recommend that to anyone. Before I move on, I also want to shout out the weird country version of “Year of the Tiger.” It honestly goes hard.

Prince and the Revolution LIVE: Moving onto the next concert film, we have the first thing this month covering “His Royal Badness” himself, Prince. And yes, I said first. I plan on covering all three of his movies at some point. Before I get to those, I watched a live concert film from 1985, from when he was touring for “Purple Rain.” For this, I have the blu ray/CD combo from 2022. To make things brief, the stage is Prince’s playground. This is a more basic concert film than the others I’ve covered, clearly made for TV. The video quality is a bit messy, especially in darker lit parts. But, it’s saved by the fact that A) the sound quality is great, and B) Prince is Prince. He’s running around on stage, climbing up to higher areas, playing around with props, and getting chased by “security guards.” Oh yeah, and he tears through a setlist that covers hits from his first six records. If you want a peek at what Prince was like when he was let loose and at his peak, this is a good one to check out.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It: The next day, I went from watching “The Purple One,” to watching “The King of Pop.” Out of the huge concert films and documentaries I had never seen, this is probably the biggest. I know multiple people (hi dad, hi Gia, hi Dukari) who have praised it strongly, and I’ve been aware of it for most of my life. I feel like there’s no better time to watch it than now. So boy, does this behemoth live up to the hype. For those that (somehow) don’t know, “This Is It” covers the making of what was supposed to be MJ’s final tour. They show everything that goes into putting on a show that’s on a massive scale. You get to see Michael, as well as the many crew members, musicians, sound techs, and dancers, piecing together what these shows were going to be like. From the look of it, it could’ve been the greatest tour of all-time.

As a movie, it flows really well. While they show almost every detail you would want, it never spends too much time on one thing. It’s also a really good look at MJ's creative process, with the big highlights seeing how he was transforming his biggest hit songs on a scale that had never been seen like this. It’s very much a crowd pleaser, and I think it’s a great way to celebrate the legacy of his music.

Alice In Chains Mtv Unplugged: For something like Unplugged, I think grunge is probably the best genre for it. There are plenty of music genres and artists that still work really well when you strip down everything to their bare essentials, but grunge with Unplugged hits differently. Case in point, when Alice In Chains were on there. YES, also when Nirvana did one. That one is iconic, but I’m not covering that one because I’ve listened to the album version plenty of times. This week, I finally watched the AIC one, and I think it’s just as good as the Nirvana one.

For context, this performance was AIC’s first show in three years. Sadly, it was also one of Layne Staley’s last performances. From what I’ve learned, there was a lot going wrong behind the scenes of this production, too. It’s a miracle that the final product is as amazing as it is. With all thirteen songs, they’re able to give each of them a more intimate feeling, making this performance feel more melancholic. It’s not a complete downer, though. There are plenty of moments of levity in between the songs with the group joking around and noodling while they set up for the next track. They also do a lot of their more well known songs. Not much else to say honestly. It’s a great performance, and if you're into grunge at all, this is essential viewing.

Sound City: Continuing on with more grunge rock(kinda), we’re going to Sound City! Directed by Dave Grohl, this documentary tells the story of the infamous recording studio called Sound City. While it started as a place where people recorded novelty records, it ended up being where legendary groups and artists would go to make their music. This place is where pretty much every other massive rock album from the 70s and the 90s was recorded. Too many to list off here. With that, there so many artists featured in the interviews, from Tom Petty to the members of Fleetwood Mac to the remaining members of Nirvana, Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, and so many more.

This one honestly feels like MJ’s “This Is It” in a way. It’s such an emotional, detailed and bittersweet journey that you don’t get to often. Also just like “This Is It,” it doesn’t just settle with its stars. Grohl goes through and interviews the people that have run the studio for years, telling their stories, giving Sound City life. It also gives quite a bit of insight on the recording process and what made people choose a studio specifically like that, despite it not being the cleanest of places. A lot of the people went there for the environment, the odd acoustics(specifically for drumming), and the biggest reason, the Neve 8028 sound board. This doc is able to get across so much in less than two hours, but it never feels rushed. As a bonus, you get to see the likes of Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney, Trent Reznor, Frank Black of Pixies, Josh Homme, and plenty of others playing in a studio. What’s not to like about this one?

DOUBLE FEATURE - Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Who’s Tommy: Closing out the week, I did a little double feature. I had been meaning to do a rewatch of “The Wall,” so I paired it with another rock opera adapted to film. Enter: “Tommy.” The 1975 film based on the album of the same name. Also, a movie I still hadn’t seen.

I’ll be short with “The Wall.” It’s really good. If you haven’t seen it, but love the album, you’ll most likely love the movie. Hell, a slight hot take, I think the movie works better than just the album. It’s definitely the most extreme way to experience the album(outside of the live shows at least.) The very surreal and dark visuals are amazing. Especially the animation done by Gerald Scarfe. Plus, it’s paced really well. I highly recommend it.

Moving to “Tommy”, this has been a blind spot for me when it comes to classic rock. While I’ve listened to The Who a little bit, outside of “Pinball Wizard,” I hadn’t listened to anything else from “Tommy.” So, going into the movie, I didn’t completely know what to expect. I’ll be blunt, this movie is fucking weird. The title character, Tommy, is a kid who is “deaf, dumb, and blind,”(in that order) who goes on a journey where he ends up being a champion at pinball, as well as a religious messiah. Also, I won’t get much into it, but plotwise it feels very similar to “The Wall”(“The Wall” came out years later). It's a full-on musical, too. One I have mixed feelings on.

I had fun with it, but on the first watch, it feels like getting hit with so much. There isn’t a whole lot of downtime, and a few sections honestly go on for too long. The pacing drags it down a little for me, but the music and the camp visuals are fun. It ends up being an almost two hour long fever dream from The Who with cameos from Elton John, Jack Nicholson, and Tina Turner. It’s definitely cut from the same cloth as other cult classics like “The Rocky Horror Show” and “Phantom of the Paradise.” While I personally don’t enjoy it as much as the others, I can at least recommend it to people if they loved those ones.

That was week two!!! Again, thank you to those who have joined me on this so far. I’m a little late on this post, but I’m still on a good pace to make sure I at least watch something a day. I’ll be back next week, and I’ll catch ya for week three!!