Change Your Image
alexcmu80
Reviews
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)
Never before
The goal (according to Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich) was to make an album of strictly aggressive music, with strictly no negativity. The method was to pen a heavy metal album under the guidance of a $40,000 a month shrink. The film covered the intimacies of a group of world-famous heavy metal icons struggling with success, ego, creativity, and addiction.
Perhaps none of these things has ever been done before. Here we're are lucky, for the sake of documentary, to have all three. I recommend this film to any fan of cinema, whether you listen to Joaguin Rodrigo or Blackalicious. A bonus for you San Francisco heads: the Bay Area is a character in the film as well (it plays itself).
Inside Islam (2002)
Look elsewhere for info on Islam
This documentary starts strong, with a decent summary of the complicated early history of Islam and vivid images. That said, this is an unambiguously poor work. The film turns into a fear-heavy op-ed, describing 9/11 as a "culmination" of Islamic anger. In a weak effort at objectivity, the narrator notes that events like Oklahoma City attest to the fact that Islam has "no monopoly on terror." Wow. The film does offer a generally diverse array of Muslim voices, but again falls into the trap of over-simplicity by concluding with an Iraqi-born Muslim man thanking America for restoring his dignity: "I love this country." "I thank God for bringing me to this country so I can feel again that I am a human." The film ends with a narrator reading this cue card: "Some are hopeful that Muslims, Christians, and Jews will be able reestablish a peaceful co-existence, but others aren't so sure, as violence continues, suicide bombers get younger, and death tolls go on rising." For a film that purports to go "Inside Islam" and identifies "seeing each other as stereotypes, rather than as human beings" as a major symptom of today's conflicts, the filmmakers do nothing to show the practical realities of Muslim life today. Instead, we have an uncreative and one dimensional local news piece.
Control Room (2004)
A candid and revealing window.
In 2005 it is hard to open a newspaper and not find something about both Silicon Valley and the Middle East. But despite the essential role of these spaces and the issues that surround them, despite the way they truly frame today's world as it races ahead while grappling with perennial conflicts, it is hard to get a candid slice of what it means to survive in these two worlds.
Thank you Jehane Noujam. This director's first two films have done what all modern cinema, whether doc or not, should do. That is, tell stories that should be told, not those that audiences want to hear. This is a responsibility that has been confronted in a deliberate and penetrating manner in both Startup.com and Control Room. I recommend these films to anyone that would benefit from a better understanding of today and tomorrow, namely everyone.