10 Greatest Rock Documentaries (Part 1)

I just saw this trailer for a movie called "Anvil! The Story of Anvil". It's about a metal band from the 80's who had videos on MTV back then and toured with some big bands but was never really that successful. I had never heard of them before but man does this movie look good. Here's the clip I saw and then the 10 Greatest Rock Documentaries list.





1) No Direction Home- Scorsese's my favorite director ever but I usually hate his music movies. In addition to "No Direction Home" he directed an episode of a seven part documentary on the blues, that recent "Shine a Light" concert movie of the Rolling Stones, and most famously The Band's "The Last Waltz". The first two of these I thought were really boring, and I have never understood the appeal of "The Last Waltz". The Band made some great records but they weren't the fucking Beatles. That movie seems to be saying that the Band's final performance was marking the end of an era. By November of 1976 what era was ending? Whichever one it was, during the shitty Joni Mitchell song I couldn't wait for it to end.

But in 2005, with "No Direction Home", Scorsese also made the greatest rock documentary ever. It covers Bob Dylan from his start in Minnesota up through to his famous motorcycle accident in 1966 at the height of his fame. The title comes from a lyric in Bob's "Like a Rolling Stones", and also serves as a commentary on a dishevelled, skinny, strung out looking Dylan in the movies final scenes, talking to a reporter, rocking back and forth, and muttering with bleary eyes, "I just want to go home...I just want to go home..." This comes right before the film's absolute final scene, the famous 1966 Royal Albert Hall concert where they called Bob "Judas". The whole movie is 4 hours long and it's on two dvds. The first half is good but can be a little dull at parts. The second half however is two hours that I'll never get tired of watching.






Continued next post