Movie Details
| Title: | X: The Unheard Music | |
| Director: | W.T. Morgan | |
| Year: | 1986 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 04.20.24 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 04.20.24 | Internet | This is a documentary about the LA punk band X. It's very good. A lot of times when I watch some of these documentaries about a specific band or subject or whatever, there's more or less a template that people follow. When they're just ok they feel a lot like the Laurent Bouzereau special features on the old Universal DVDs. Informative sure, but it's some talking heads intercut with some archival footage or stills or whatever; they run through the movie (or career or whatever) and then it's done. On one hand you can't really complain because you got what you were supposed to get out of the thing, but on the other hand it's not memorable, nothing elevates the form... it's basically an easier version of reading the wiki page. Then there's documentaries where filmmakers got lucky. they met incredible characters like Grey Gardens or had incredible access like Paradise Lost or spent a crazy amount of time like Hoop Dreams. These movies you watch not so much because you're initially interested in the subject matter but more because the movie itself is good so you learn what you're gonna learn as a byproduct of watching the good movie. And then there's a third kinda doc which takes the subject matter and makes a movie in the style of that subject. The Kid Stays in the Picture, narrated by the subject himself, basically an autobiography. Get Back, spending over 7 hours as a fly on the wall as The Beatles record an album. The Act of Killing, watching these guys that conducted genocide re-enact their actions. F for Fake, Orson Welles telling you stories about magicians while doing magic tricks with film itself. This is in that third category. It's about the band X, has some live footage that they shot in 81, but they took so long to make the movie that you also get them signing to a major label, finding success, touring, and the movie comes out months before the guitarist leaves. So some songs are performed live, some songs are in music video format, some songs are over photo montages or cinematic sequences. There's a character in the film portraying the subject of one song... cut with old news archival footage, old commercials, miniature model photography, rough animation, and interview footage of the band. It's all a big messy hodgepodge of punk DIY style that vibes off the scene very well and keeps the movie rolling and interesting as you listen to a bunch of X songs. All in that 80s LA vein. I liked it quite a bit. |
