Review: Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Sit down, get comfortable. For just over two and a half hours you'll get to be a fly-on-the-wall as heavy metal band Metallica writes & records their album St. Anger. "Two and a half hours?!" I hear you ask. Considering that St. Anger took several years to put together, with a lot of ups & downs, there's a lot to see...
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster meets the band as they begin work on St. Anger. Their management have hired the band a therapist - sorry a "performance enhancement coach" - and they've decided to change the way they make albums from strict deliniation of roles to jamming & seeing what comes out the other end. It's explained early in the film as a bunch of guys jamming in the garage, only this bunch of guys is Metallica.
But the music isn't the focus in this doco. We watch as the band members, now freed from their normal way of doing things, let loose all of the irritations and resentment that has built up over twenty years of being together. It seems to have taken a toll on them all. Bassist Jason Newsted has left. Drummer Lars Ulrich takes his father out to show him the new land he's just bought and needs to have a conversation through the therapist. Guitarist & vocalist James Hetfield storms out of one recording session and doesn't return for a year.
It's striking to see the changes in attitudes of the band members when they come back together & get on with making the album. They all seem to be able to better articulate what they want from the band & how far they're willing to go, though this creates more tension between Hetfield and the rest of the group for a while. Thankfully, they seem to rediscover their lost unity through the common irritation that the therapist becomes and it's all coming together by the time it comes to auditioning a replacement bassist (producer Bob Rock temps for a while).
In addition to the fly-on-the-wall footage, the film includes media interviews, MTV news clips and concert footage old & new. The IMDB entry reports that the film was originally meant to be a mini-series similar to The Osbournes, but not liking the product the band bought the rights and turned it into this feature-length piece.
Not being a big Metallica fan I had little background knowledge going into this film other than a vague recollection of Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters riffs & lyrics. Regardless, this story had me engaged throughout. Metallica and music doco fans will likely see this during its cinema run, and I'm sure that those groups will pick it up on DVD as well, but if you're considering seeing it it's worth a cinema visit for the awesome sound you'll get, especially in the stadium concert scenes.
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Rated: MA
Running Time: 141 min
Now showing in cinemas.
Seen: Cinema 1, Greater Union, Manuka, ACT, 21 Sep 04 6.30pm session.
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster meets the band as they begin work on St. Anger. Their management have hired the band a therapist - sorry a "performance enhancement coach" - and they've decided to change the way they make albums from strict deliniation of roles to jamming & seeing what comes out the other end. It's explained early in the film as a bunch of guys jamming in the garage, only this bunch of guys is Metallica.
But the music isn't the focus in this doco. We watch as the band members, now freed from their normal way of doing things, let loose all of the irritations and resentment that has built up over twenty years of being together. It seems to have taken a toll on them all. Bassist Jason Newsted has left. Drummer Lars Ulrich takes his father out to show him the new land he's just bought and needs to have a conversation through the therapist. Guitarist & vocalist James Hetfield storms out of one recording session and doesn't return for a year.
It's striking to see the changes in attitudes of the band members when they come back together & get on with making the album. They all seem to be able to better articulate what they want from the band & how far they're willing to go, though this creates more tension between Hetfield and the rest of the group for a while. Thankfully, they seem to rediscover their lost unity through the common irritation that the therapist becomes and it's all coming together by the time it comes to auditioning a replacement bassist (producer Bob Rock temps for a while).
In addition to the fly-on-the-wall footage, the film includes media interviews, MTV news clips and concert footage old & new. The IMDB entry reports that the film was originally meant to be a mini-series similar to The Osbournes, but not liking the product the band bought the rights and turned it into this feature-length piece.
Not being a big Metallica fan I had little background knowledge going into this film other than a vague recollection of Enter Sandman and Nothing Else Matters riffs & lyrics. Regardless, this story had me engaged throughout. Metallica and music doco fans will likely see this during its cinema run, and I'm sure that those groups will pick it up on DVD as well, but if you're considering seeing it it's worth a cinema visit for the awesome sound you'll get, especially in the stadium concert scenes.
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Rated: MA
Running Time: 141 min
Now showing in cinemas.
Seen: Cinema 1, Greater Union, Manuka, ACT, 21 Sep 04 6.30pm session.
posted by Dean at 10:47 PM
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