SOME KIND OF MONSTER
I've been sitting on this review for two weeks now (per request of the nice people at IFC who gave my buddy and I passes to a Manhattan screening), so I'm glad I can finally spout off about what I feel is far and away the
BEST documentary about a band that I have ever seen.
Some Kind Of Monster is the most unfiltered look at a group of musicians you could ever ask for.
I had never been to a screening room before, but I will tell you that it's not a glamorous experience. It is, for lack of a better term, a classroom with theater seats and a small movie screen. There was obviously a demand to see
SKOM, because this was apparently the third screening, and it was mobbed. Sitting all around my friend Jon and I were music journalists armed with legal pads and pens, as well as the ocassional face from tv. MTV's Gideon Yago was sitting in the row in front of us, and I think I saw one of the guys from FUSE TV there as well.
SKOM is a long movie; over two and a half hours (at least the cut we saw was that long...we may not have seen the final cut), so get all of your peeing done before the movie starts. You won't want to miss any of this movie once it gets rolling.
One thing this film does very quickly is establish the work ethic associated with being in a world famous rock band. Sure, these guys might have been passing out drunk and showering with a dozen strippers backstage when they were in their 20's, but they're all in their forties now, married, some with children, and their priorities are more geared toward securing a comfortable future for their kids than numbing themselves. Metallica lives, eats, breathes, sleeps, and shits their music. They have a worldwide fan base who they don't want to let down, but at the same time, they don't want to re-hash something they've done before, so they struggle to reinvent themselves as they did with
The Black Album.
I was a chubby headbanger when I was a kid, so I am intimately familiar with Metallica and their music. I've worn out my VHS copy of
A Year And A Half In The Life Of Metallica, another excellent documentary about the band, and I own
Kill 'Em All on vinyl, cassette, and CD. I also have a dozen ratty old Metallica concert shirts that have been turned into rags from too much wear, most notably, the "Metal Up Your Ass" shirt with the knife coming out of the toilet bowl. In short, I'm a fan. I had expectations going into this film...high ones. Thank God, they were all exceeded.
After a brief backstory explaining the bands roots in San Fransisco with original bassist Cliff Burton and guitarist Dave Mustaine, the film picks up right around the time
Jason Newsted announces that he's
leaving the band. Aside from his desire to branch out into other musical endeavors, we learn that Newsted was opposed to having the band get group therapy, a route many popular bands take when ego and personality conflict threaten the group's livelihood.
What happens over the course of the next two years (Yes, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky spent 700+ days with the band) is the lengthy process by which Metallica crafts a studio album.
SKOM covers the entire recording of
St. Anger, an album that was heavily criticized for its minimalist production value in the wake of several very thunderous discs from Metallica. Watching the members of Metallica in the recording studio with Bob Rock is much like watching a group of teenage brothers arguing over who gets to use the old man's car on a Saturday night. There's a lot of yelling, frustration, and name calling, but there's also a lot of creativity. It becomes very obvious that James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich are the centerpieces of the band (which is common knowledge among Metallica fans). They both have fucked up relationships with their fathers (a trait common to guys in the heavy metal business), because they're all either
a) quiet or withdrawn or
b) exploding with rage. No one takes criticism well either; Hetfield doesn't want his riffs criticized and Ulrich doesn't want his drumming ragged on. Guitarist Kirk Hammet plays the intermediary very well, and is often seen begging the others to just get along with one another.
The band enlists "performance coach" Phil Towle at the request of their managers at Q-Prime at the rate of $40,000 a month to assist them so that the external as well as internal pressure doesn't consume the band. Some of Towle's mumbo-jumbo is a little new-agey for me, but I understand his motivations. He's trying to get the band to express WHY they're angry with one another rather than just keeping all the anger bottled up and then screaming "Fuck You" at one another. One scene that really stands out is when Phil makes Lars Ulrich sit down in a room with original guitarist (and eventually MEGADETH frontman) Dave Mustaine. From what I understand, there was a lot of footage (over two hours) shot in the room, of which we see about ten minutes...but it's ten powerful minutes in which you see tears flowing from Mustaine's eyes as he explains how awful it was trying to succeed in the shadow of Metallica, knowing full well that he completely screwed up his shot at fame and fortune with his substance abuse.
The film covers the entire period that James Hetfield
admits himself into a rehab facility for alcoholism for several months, and the struggles the other members went through while one of the main creative forces exits. Speaking of creativity, with the making of
St. Anger, we see a band collaborating for the first time as a unit, rather than waiting for James and Lars to come up with a song and hand it in to the others...a move, ironically, which probably would have kept Newsted in the band had they adopted this method of writing sooner.
The film also covers the audition process the band went through to find a new bass player. It becomes obvious after seeing the other applicants (which included MARILYN MANSON bassist Twiggy Ramirez and CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's Pepper Keenan among others) why the band chose OZZY OSBOURNE /SUICIDAL TENDENCIES bassist Robert Trujillo. He's the only guy who didn't look like he was struggling to play the often-very-demanding Metallica songs.
While the evidence of Phil Towle's involvement is substantial, it is also obvious when he wears out his welcome. There is one point at which Hetfield becomes visibly miffed at Towle, when the band is sitting in the studio control room, working on lyrics to a song, and Towle hands Hetfield a piece of paper with some scribbled lyrics. When the shrink is writing your lyrics, it's time to cut the umbilical...sorry Phil.
There's also a great scene where the members of Metallica become intimately familiar with the dopes at corporate radio who try to pressure the band into reading really shitty promo liners in exchange for airplay. Watching the band tool on the radio drek is really worth the price of admission.
Like I mentioned earlier, this is a long movie, but I don't think it's too long. I love this kind of stuff. I think Berlinger and Sinofsky really captured the tension involved in creating music when you're a multi-platinum, world famous band, and how hard the individual members will work to keep themselves together...as well as the band.
