Trying to evoke the same sort of excitement for mid'90s Britpop as films like The Filth And The Fury did for '70s punk rock. At first glance, it's tempting to say that the raw material certainly wasn't that good but I found myself wanting to to see the videos Park Life, Sour Times and more of Liam and Noel fighting and subtitles in American as evidenced on MTV many times during the halcyon days of the '90s. Who knows, maybe the clearance rights were ridiculously high. Even the interviews here aren't spunky, with no real tales of fisticuffs or alleged fisticuffs. Of course I'm speaking as an American but the fast clips about all the excitement goes by at a sprinters' pace. There's just enough to pique viewers' interest, but not enough to satisfy them.
The opening sequence focuses on the Stone Roses at Spike Island in 1990, using it as the turning point in Brit music movement, along with Kurt Cobain's suicide. This documentary gives you the feel that the bands were mostly middle class kids rebelling against complacency, not poor kids rebelling against poverty and the government. There's a rather tenuous tie-in connecting the rise of Tony Blair with the emergence of Britpop craze.
Interviewees include Pulp's Jarvis Cocker, artist Damien Hirst (best known for introducing mutilated cows as trendy sculptures), Louise Wener of Sleeper, and Liam Gallagher, who's unusually restrained here. The key forces behind the musical resurgence, according to the filmmakers, was a revolt against the American mass culture that had consumed Britain's unique pop culture identity as the '90s dawned. It's certainly true that the energy or mania caused by this movement was strictly a Brit thing. Oasis weren't that big in the U.S., and certainly Pulp and Blur were unknown in America except by rock cognoscenti and the occasional late, late night MTV viewer. Groups like the Verve, Portishead, Radiohead and P.J. Harvey also contributors to this movement receive very little coverage in this documentary, but just the mere mention serves as a reminder of how much great music the Britpop scene produced. Which reminds me, I need to see the video for "Karma Police" by Radiohead, the one with the guy on fire at the end. A truly harrowing but subdued piece of filmmaking.
Jewel-Live At Humphrey's By The Bay-Eagle Eye Media
Known best for her cute folk-pop of the mid 90s, Jewel was the busty, wholesome alternative to Fiona Apple's anorexic heroin chic. Lately, Jewel has eschewed her affable image to dress up ike a pop tart (Intuition video, Blender mag cover, etc.) and cop Courtney's act by going bonkers in front of a crowd in New Hampshire. I'll stick with Jewel's original incarnation, however, and I hope she returns to it someday.
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