my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   Shut Up and Play the Hits
Director:   Will Lovelace, Dylan Southern
Year:   2012
Genre:   Concert Film
Times Seen:   1
Last Seen:   10.20.12

Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
10.20.12Blu-ray Mostly concert film some light documentary about LCD Soundsystem's final show and the morning afterward. I'm a pretty huge LCD fan so I soaked in every detail this film presented for me. It's hard to think of the film as a film even because I'm such a big fan it's just an automatic love. Like oh of course I love this movie. They'd have to monumentally fuck it up for me not to. I watched the whole 3.5 hour show on youtube the day after it happened. Of course I'm going to like it in HD with James Murphy talking about it.

So the structure is made up of three parts: James the morning after the show going about casual day-after-last-show tasks, a lengthy interview James gave, often serving as narration, and the concert footage which looks like it was captured with 18 cameras. It's nothing less than stunning to see how well a concert can be captured these days. Even in low lighting everything's still crisp and visible but when the stage lights shine every face in the crowd is discernable. Especially this one poor guy who seems very emotional and upset about the whole thing. You see the bliss and excitement and power that the music brings to this crowd all in HD and well-lit. It's amazing.

Watching it also made me sad. I got to see LCD three times. Once before their first album hit playing at South by, once on tour for their first record, and again on tour for their last. It's weird to have cogent memories of the beginning of this band and like less than ten years later be there for the end of it. The selfish part of me wishes they WOULD keep going on and on until they suck but I think in the long wrong they will be more memorable - and successfull - stopping when they did. Who knows, time will tell.

Loved the movie though. It's a cherished possession. The collector part of my brain is happy to have a physical copy that no one can take away, even though considerable technical difficulties with trying to get my computer to play the disc kind of gave me an intermission in the middle of the movie that I didn't really ask for.