The Perfect Physique

This was a crappy movie to end the year on. The Perfect Physique popped up on Netflix because I've watched other great bodybuilding doc's. I figured I'd try this one, too, even though I was skeptical. It looked like it might be "The Real World" with a bunch of shirtless bro's. Thankfully, that wasn't the case, but it was just a different shade of garbage.

The Perfect Physique is supposed to be about five Olympians who compete in the Physique class, and five fitness models. They all hang out and bullshit about their diet and routine. Sounds worth checking out. Hell, it's got Sadik Hadzovic in it. You'll probably glean some knowledge, you think...

Well, the Director is a female and it shows in the way these dudes are treated. There are totally unnecessary montages of these guys doing staged bullshit like a tug-o-war...shirtless...slo-mo...sweaty...for fuck's sake. And the gym scenes are super gay, too. If someone walked in on you watching certain scenes they'd think you were getting down with a software gay porn. So if you're that interested in these guys' tips on diet and lifting just make sure no one is in the room.

Oh yeah, the overt product placement by Met-Rx was another factor that cheapened the whole thing. Plus the awful music for the montages. Yeah, this was a dud.

SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock

This movie also appeared in my queue so I gave it a whirl. The last one was about A&R men, this one is about photography in the punk / rock / glam scenes. You might not know Mick Rock's name, but god damn you've seen his photos everywhere! The dude shot so many iconic album covers and 70's rock stars it's crazy. Cover of "Transformer"? Check. Cover of "Raw Power"? Check. Bowie? Check. The dude is incredible.

This is a look inside Mick's life, his history, his present, his yogic practices, and all his decadence. Mick plays a roll front-and-center giving commentary on his life. He narrates the movie from open to close. And it's interspersed with reenactments, archival audio and video, and additional interviews. It's really well done. And Mick Rock has quite a lot of personality. He's kinda like the photographer version of Jeremy Clakson. Maybe mix Clarkson and James May together and you might end up with Mick Rock if you throw in a lot of cocaine. It's entertaining stuff. The movie, that is. Not cocaine.

Who the F••K is that guy?

This popped up in my Netflix queue. Given my propensity for documentaries and especially music documentaries, this was a shoe-in. It's the unlikely story of an enthusiastic young gay Puerto Rican in NYC who makes it big in the music industry. Homeboy becomes a big-time A&R dude for the majors and signs some of the biggest acts of his generation. And he essentially gets by on his wits, determination, and keen vision for what artists COULD become if given a chance. He's big into punk and metal and saw a lot of legendary gigs.

I think it's a testament to his character that they got so many big artists to contribute interview time to the making of this doc. It's not the fanciest doc, or the biggest budget doc in the world. But it's a cool story. And Michael Alago seems like a nice bloke. He has some crazy stories about being gay in NY in the 70's and 80's.

Anyhow, you should stream it on Netflix.

Chasing Trane

Don't have much time to write about this right now. Just gotta say that it ruled. A well done documentary about Coltrane. Streaming on Netflix. Mandatory viewing.

Williams

This popped up in Netflix. I was on it immediately. It's an hour and forty five minute documentary about the Williams racing team in F1.

The doc is high quality. It centers around Sir Frank Williams (obviously), his daughter and Williams Team Principle, Claire, and thirdly his now deceased wife, Ginny. There's a good amount of Ginny's story told in her own words. She wrote a book about the last twenty years with Frank and dictated much of it onto micro cassettes. And there's a lot of personal interviews with Claire and Frank shot just for the doc. They ask some questions that get rather personal and emotional. The movie isn't a total fluff piece. It highlights flaws and struggles of Frank Williams in particular, as well as obviously highlighting the supreme triumphs of the team throughout the years.

You've got some interviews with the likes of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell, as well as a variety of the Williams' good friends.

You learn that Claire's brother is a little whiny bitch and you can tell within ten seconds why he's not TP.

Anyhow, it's a good story. You learn a lot about Williams' back story. And you learn a lot about Frank as a person. He's a hard nut!

Recommended. Gets emotional at times, btw.

Foo Fighters: Back and Forth

I like music. I like documentaries. I like music documentaries.

Foo Fighters' "Back and Forth" doc just popped up in my Netflix feed so I watched it last night. Marie joined in and commented that it was a well done movie. I concur. Dave Grohl's been doing this stuff so long now that he knows what to put out and what not to. He knows how to cultivate his brand. The dude has a very high bar.

This movie tracks the inception of Foo Fighters up until the Wasting Light album. There are interviews with all the band members and tons of archival footage. When you're Dave Grohl there's no shortage of cameramen hanging around.

It's a slick movie and something that any Foo Fighters fan would love.

Dig it.

George Harrison: Living in the Material World

Who doesn't want to watch 3.5 hours of George Harrison? C'mon now.

Scorsese released this bio in 2011. Mercifully he chopped it into two parts. The first half focuses mostly on George in context of the Beatles. And the second half obviously charts George and his quest for spirituality post-Beatlemania.

There's no narrator to hold your hand through the doc. It's just edited together via archival footage and interviews shot for the movie. There are reoccurring personalities throughout the film like Eric Clapton and the two remaining Beatles. But a good deal of it is George himself. Being a Beatle there was never a shortage of cameras around. I believe it took Scorsese's team five years to comb through all the footage they amassed to cull what they needed to tell the story.

I've been watching it on and off for the last few days. It doesn't demand a continuous viewing or even two viewings. I found it quite easy to pick up as if you were reading a book with a couple days in between sessions.

It's not super compelling, but it is good. I'm sure a hardcore Beatles fan would enjoy the hell out of it. I've just never been a huge fan of their work overall. And I found their solo efforts pretty dodgy to be honest. But I digress...this documentary is interesting and it's well done. Scorsese doesn't fuck about.

Generation Iron 2

I really quite liked the first Generation Iron. Four years later and here's the second installment. Where as the first one focused on professional bodybuilders competing for Mr. O, this one is more about the non-professional space. Calum Von Moger and Rich Piana (RIP) are spotlighted, for instance.

Vlad goes over to the Middle East to see what's going in Kuwait. And even pops over to India with Kai Greene. It's a typically international overview and the production quality is top notch. There's some good representation from female bodybuilders and overall Vlad does a good job of exploring bodybuilding outside of the narrow focus that the first movie had. He definitely broadens his horizons and knows how to play up the differences between the characters he profiles. The movie flows very well.

If you care about bodybuilding then you'll dig this.

Harry Benson: Shoot First

Here's a bloke I'd never actually heard of before. I was on the plane back from Scotland scouring the in-flight entertainment to see if there was anything I had missed on the way over. Turns out there was this hidden gem.

Harry Benson is a Scottish photographer who's shot just about every famous fucking photograph in the world. The Beatles, Ali, the Kennedys, Warhol, MLK, wars, famines, assassinations, sports, fashion, art, this dude covered everything, all the time, everywhere. I'm surprised he didn't just happen to be on the moon when Armstrong took his first step.

This is a good documentary about the man behind the lens. He's funny. He's bold and brash. He's a good dude. And he's incredibly talented. You'd be hard pressed to find a living photographer who's documented so many iconic moments in history and created so many iconic photographs in the process. Literally amazing stuff.

Recommended.

Oasis: Supersonic

It's been a year since this came out. Time freakin flies, man.

I was one the plane to Scotland and there was honestly fuck all to watch. I loved this documentary but would have preferred to have dug into some new stuff instead. Anyway, I decided to watch it again instead of Baywatch the Movie or Fast and the Furious 20 or whatever...

It's still a brilliant doc. Loved it all over again. Still highly recommended.

Sound City

This popped up in my Amazon feed yesterday. I'd heard great things about it so I checked it out. I'm a Dave Grohl fan and I can nerd out to recording processes, so it was a no-brainer.

It's a two hour doc about a famed recording studio in Cali called Sound City. Truthfully, I didn't know about all the records it was responsible for other than Smells Like Teen Spirit (which sounds incredible). Turns out Sound City was a dump, but it had a fabled Neve mixing board and a live room that had magical acoustic properties. I won't really spoil the details, but it's neat stuff.

Dave does a good job telling the story of the owners, employees, and artists. The audio mix is great (of course) and overall it's just really down-to-earth and captivating.

If you like music you'll like this film. Plain and simple.

The Sunshine Makers

Just watched this on Netflix. I love documentaries, and some of the best ones I watch are about things I'm not even interested in. Like baseball, cricket, or drugs. The Sunshine Makers was very well done.

I have a soft spot for the 60's, especially the hippie movement and the Summer of Love etc. Maybe it's just cuz all the chicks were so hot back then. I dunno. But you could get away with a lot more. A freer time, no doubt. The 60's was when international drug smuggling was sexy and all you got was a slap on the wrist if you got caught. Good times.

This story is so crazy in scope it's hard to believe. But man, these cats were really on to something big back in the day. The doc is cool because almost all the main players involved are still around and willing to talk about their capers and exploits over forty years ago. Lots of great archival footage, reenactment, and contemporary interviews weave together to tell this fantastic tale of drug creation and distribution on a truly global scale. Or dare I say cosmic scale.

If you like the 60's, drugs, and pulling a fast one over on the cops...dig this, brotha!

Danny Says

I just watched Danny Says on Netflix. I'm a sucker for pretty much any and all music bios. And these days there a lot more doc's about personalities and influencers within the music scenes outside of just the artists themselves.

This flick documents the life and times of one such cat. A mover and a shaker who was involved with the success and the lives of Andy Warhol, Nico, the Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, the Stooges, the MC5, the Ramones, Patti Smith, the Doors, and on and on.

It's mostly told in Danny's own words through various interviews. But there's a good deal of testimonials and anecdotes shared by the A-list musicians and artists he signed or influenced in one way or another. He worked for Elektra Records for a good deal of time and he was kind of an A&R dude / Manager. I believe his title was "freak," or at least that's what it said on his Elektra business cards...

Anyhow, if you care the above bands then this is a good watch. It's all light stuff. Nothing too heavy. But some great storytelling.

Dig it.

Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans

A documentary about a pseudo-documentary. Hell yeah!

Le Mans is in my second favorite automotive movie of all time, right behind Grand Prix. It's a phenomenal flick. It is to motor racing what Easy Rider is to biker flicks...sort of.

Steve went to Le Mans under the steam of his own Solar Production Company and just started shooting. No script. Just shooting. No idea what to do other than capture the essence of the drivers (especially) and the cars at Le Mans. He'd figure out a script and a plot on the fly. Fuckin right on. But it didn't exactly all pan out as planned...

This is that story. This is behind-the-scenes report on Steve, the shoot, the politics, and the people involved in an incredible Steve McQueen movie.

I streamed it on Amazon. If you like Le Mans or Steve McQueen then you will dig this.

If you love cars then watch Le Mans. It's that simple.