Some Kind of Monster REVIEW

METALLICA: Some Kind of Monster (DVD) - B+

What can I say about it? Much like Metallica -- it never really made it out to Hawaii this past year -- well, I shouldn't say that it didn't make it out to Hawaii, it did play at the Doris Duke -- so that's close enough to be nowhere I would go and see it at

How to evaluate this documentary about the life of the "Mighty" between 2001 and 2004-ish?

I guess I can see how it could be that different people would have different insights about what the documentary means and what they saw in it -- I clearly come from a perspective that is deeper than your run of the mill viewer because I have followed news about the band and its doings for the past 20 years or so

Even with that, I think I was very surprised about many things after seeing the movie -- the first thing was that during the making the of the latest album St. A- ... Metallica let the webcams in from time to time to say stuff to the fans -- when you see the context of some of the stuff that was going on behind the scenes before "the fans could look in and see some realness from Metallica" -- that they were fighting or not enjoying each other, yet putting out this happy facade to the world ... I mean, I guess it's naive to think that Metallica would be any different than any other group with problems, but it showed me how much I was willing to accept things at face value at first

One of the more controversial aspects of the film will be the Lars - Dave Mustaine "reconciliation" sessions -- having seen the cut in the DVD, and then the alternate cut in the bonus features -- I have these thoughts about it

The cut in the film is for the general film public who could after the time spent watching the film really give a crap about it for the rest of their lives -- but to the Metallica fan, it's a bit too breezy a cut -- the alternate cut seemed like a fairer cut to Dave especially, more balanced, more explanatory -- the film cut kind of makes Dave look sappy and weak and unfocused, like he was the "dumpee" in a relationship -- which I think is basically how he has been viewed all these years, in this case, you wonder if the point is to show the recon why a viewer would come away with the same impression -- well, joe schmo would, and the fans would just scratch their heads going HUH

The last aspect is how much or how close the band was to disbanding -- that was pretty heavy stuff in the film about how things were before and how things were since James was in rehab

One of the things that I felt was odd and creepy was Phil, the therapist, brought in to work with the band about their issues -- not that it made them look soft -- just how they treated him like he was a tag-a-long even after he had helped them alot, like he wanted to be a permanent part of the band -- I thought that was just creep action, pretty assholish

The reason why I think I am grading it out is because I felt that sometimes the story cutting agenda was in play for this documentary --- sure, it would be naive to suggest that cuts aren't made in all documentaries to tell a "better story" -- to me, the fact that the Mighty went through a tough period and the cams caught nearly all of it is the story enough -- it didn't need little embellish cuts with the Dave thing or Phil thing to create what in my opinion was artificial drama around stuff that was already dramatic because it was real

Sounds like I'm painting myself into a logical quandary, so I'll end -- it's not the most interesting documentary that you will ever see in your life, or personally I didn't find it to be the most compelling doc -- what I think is great about it is that when it just rolls with it, you get a really neat insider view of the past couple of years with Metallica that is amazing in its real-ness