Metal Documentaries

Natalie

Natalie

Insect of Terror
Staff member
I'm not sure whether the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey has been discussed in great detail here, but since I've recently watched it and another one called Heavy Metal: Louder than Life, I'd like to take this opportunity to start a topic for talking about just such metal documentaries. Good ones, bad ones, special moments, great interviews, odd interviews, interesting statements, I want to hear them all.

I really liked Metal a Headbanger's Journey, I loved how he gave a good background to metal as a music genre while trying to answer a personal question of his (why has metal been so stereotyped and branded as 'evil'?). He got some great interviews, there was structure to the whole thing, and he covered a variety of sub-genres. The gr1mest interview? The one with Norwegian black metal artist Gaahl from Gorgoroth...but in terms of great interviews there's another jewel on there: Bruce Dickinson on the stage of Hammersmith Odeon.

Now for Heavy Metal Louder than Life. It's a much longer documentary (2 CD's) and it goes into great detail about the origins, the importance of riffs, and the lifestyle, and whatnot. It has a huge range of interviews including many bands I have never heard of, but the especially great thing about it are the interviews with Dee Snider (although the above documentary also has great interviews with that guy) and how Judas Priest is mentioned quite alot (as opposed to the above documentary). All in all, it goes more into detail and you get alot of different people talking about the same thing. A great bonus is the interactive screen thing going on where there'll be an interview and you can click on an icon and get a paragraph about the interviewee, his background, his band, etc, etc. Worst thing: Some guy pointing out that bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden had twin guitars and then whoever made this DVD shows a clip from Rock in Rio at which point as we all know Maiden had three lead guitars.
 
The only metal documentary I've seen is The Early Days.  I thought it was really good, but I'd like to see some more general ones too.

Anyone know where I could find either of the two documentaries Natalie talked about?  Online would be nice, but if that's not possible, then what kind of store I should look in.  It's hard enough getting music in this country, and I guess a metal documentary would be even harder.
 
Go to Sweden? I found both of these documentaries in ordinary stores that sell CD's and DVD's in Sweden.
 
Natalie said:
I really liked Metal a Headbanger's Journey, 
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I've seen it in the movie theatre. With only 10 people but I really enjoyed it. Reasonable overview of the metal genre, without going too much in detail. I liked it how his passion steered him from opinion to artist from opinion to artist etc.
 
Invader said:
The only metal documentary I've seen is The Early Days.  I thought it was really good, but I'd like to see some more general ones too.

Anyone know where I could find either of the two documentaries Natalie talked about?  Online would be nice, but if that's not possible, then what kind of store I should look in.  It's hard enough getting music in this country, and I guess a metal documentary would be even harder.
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Try www.cdon.com

The site's in finnish as well... I know they've at least got "A Headbanger's Journey".
 
The above is,  apart from The Early Days and some incredibly boring BBC documentary,  the only documentary about heavy metal I've ever watched.  And it is I tell you very very good.  Personally I loved Alice Cooper talking.  He was so damn mature in his answers I was surprised.  It wasn't before this interview that I actually looked him up.  I recommend it to everyone.
 
Natalie said:
That would be Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. Watch it, it's great.
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Ah, ok, listed as Headbangers Ball on my link, thought it might be the same one you were talking about though ;)
 
There is also a documentary focussed on thrash metal titled 'Get Thrashed' out there.  I've watched some trailers for it, and it looks great (excepting the oh-so-camp contribution from Kirk Hammet)...hell, any trailer that features both Ulysses Siren and Exodus (Bonded By FUCKING Blood) is fine by me!
 
I've only seen Some Kind of Monster and Opeth's The Making of Deliverance and Damnation.

Some Kind of Monster was incredible, I thought so anyway. It was great to see these metal giants as human beings and with issues. I really thought it was very ignorant and stupid of Jason Newsted to call the rest of the band whimps for getting counseling. It takes a bigger person to face their issues and accept help than to run away, like he did.


Opeth's is a straightforward "this is us making a couple of cds" documentary and a bit of band history. Good stuff.
 
I've seen a documentary called "Heavy:The Story Of Metal." It's a 4 part series that goes from Black Sabbath all the way to 1991 or so, right before grunge made it big. All the big bands are in it: Zeppelin, Maiden, Priest, etc... I guess I'm not sure what Metal: A Headbanger's Journey is? I believe I've heard of it, but haven't seen it yet.
 
For the last 4 hours I have been watching "Heavy: The Story of Metal."  It was very interesting.  It showed the time line of Heavy Metal starting in the early 70's and ending at the late 90's.  It is amazing that the rise and fall of Metal throughout the years has always risen to re-invent itself in all shapes and forms.  Heavy Metal found a way to survive!  This documentary rocks.  It was shown on classic VH1 today.

@Natalie:  I think I've seen Metal a Headbangers Journey a while back but I never new the name of it.  I do remember the interview with Bruce and that black metal band from Norway called gorgorgoth.  I liked the whole metal versus evil topic, but man, that cat named Gaahl was so serious and BLACK!  My daughter watched it with me at the time and she looked at me and said "Mom this band is wicked and hell bent on Satanism."  We laughed and said there is some crazy stuff out there in the world.  As for the other Documentary (louder than life) I have never seen it.
 
I saw a docu made by Arte about Nuclear Blast and it was very very good !

It's called "Heavy-metal dans la vallée" (Heavy-metal in the valley) & it's was very made properly...

I'm looking for others docu...
 
This one sounds interesting:
--------------------------
source: http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe ... emID=80351
Iraqi Heavy Metal Band ACRASSICAUDA Denied Exit Visas To Attend Film Festival - Sep. 8, 2007 

ACRASSICAUDA, the Iraqi heavy metal band which now lives in Damascus, Syria (where the men are among more than 1.2 million Iraqis seeking refuge from a war-torn nation), has been denied exit visas to attend the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where a documentary focusing on their story, "Heavy Metal in Baghdad", is currently being shown. Furthermore, the group's publicist told Entertainment Weekly that the Syrian government is threatening to send the rockers home, and added that "their lives are in real danger."

According to NPR, ACRASSICAUDA (Latin for "black scorpion") began with the high school friendship of four young men in Iraq whose fascination with American rock music led them to form their own band.

Inspired in part by the 1990s Grammy-award-winning megaband METALLICA, the Iraqi men became famous, and infamous, for daring to infuse their native land with a culturally foreign sound known to Americans as "heavy metal."

Suroosh Alvi, co-founder of Vice magazine, spent the past few years filming ACRASSICAUDA — first, as the band tried to pioneer a heavy metal scene in Baghdad, and then as it fled to Damascus.

The "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" documentary synopsis reads as follows: "In 2003, just after the U.S. toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, Vice magazine published an article on the only heavy metal band in Iraq, ACRASSICAUDA. The Baghdad-based band was formed in the last few years of Saddam's rule and aside from the typical problems every band has, they also had to deal with the stigma of playing dark western music in an Islamic state under Baath party rule, while coming out of a decade of war, sanctions, and poverty. We found their story inspiring. When we interviewed the band they were excited to be living in a newly freed Iraq, and their future seemed limitless. They even talked of recording an album. Things took a turn for the worse, however. After a few months respite, the situation in free Iraq deteriorated quickly and by the end of the year, after a few key insurgent attacks, the bombing at the UN building, the massive strike at the grand Shi'a mosque in Najaf, Iraq started to unravel. We stayed in touch with the band through this time and in the fall of 2006, with the insurgency reaching a fevered pitch, Vice co-founder Suroosh Alvi and VBS Producer Eddy Moretti decided to visit them."

For more information on "Heavy Metal in Baghdad", visit the film's official web site at this location. -->
http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/

The band's blog can be found here. -->
http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/blog.php/
 
Forostar said:
This one sounds interesting:
--------------------------
source: http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbe ... emID=80351
Iraqi Heavy Metal Band ACRASSICAUDA Denied Exit Visas To Attend Film Festival - Sep. 8, 2007 

ACRASSICAUDA, the Iraqi heavy metal band which now lives in Damascus, Syria (where the men are among more than 1.2 million Iraqis seeking refuge from a war-torn nation), has been denied exit visas to attend the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where a documentary focusing on their story, "Heavy Metal in Baghdad", is currently being shown. Furthermore, the group's publicist told Entertainment Weekly that the Syrian government is threatening to send the rockers home, and added that "their lives are in real danger."

According to NPR, ACRASSICAUDA (Latin for "black scorpion") began with the high school friendship of four young men in Iraq whose fascination with American rock music led them to form their own band.

Inspired in part by the 1990s Grammy-award-winning megaband METALLICA, the Iraqi men became famous, and infamous, for daring to infuse their native land with a culturally foreign sound known to Americans as "heavy metal."

Suroosh Alvi, co-founder of Vice magazine, spent the past few years filming ACRASSICAUDA — first, as the band tried to pioneer a heavy metal scene in Baghdad, and then as it fled to Damascus.

The "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" documentary synopsis reads as follows: "In 2003, just after the U.S. toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, Vice magazine published an article on the only heavy metal band in Iraq, ACRASSICAUDA. The Baghdad-based band was formed in the last few years of Saddam's rule and aside from the typical problems every band has, they also had to deal with the stigma of playing dark western music in an Islamic state under Baath party rule, while coming out of a decade of war, sanctions, and poverty. We found their story inspiring. When we interviewed the band they were excited to be living in a newly freed Iraq, and their future seemed limitless. They even talked of recording an album. Things took a turn for the worse, however. After a few months respite, the situation in free Iraq deteriorated quickly and by the end of the year, after a few key insurgent attacks, the bombing at the UN building, the massive strike at the grand Shi'a mosque in Najaf, Iraq started to unravel. We stayed in touch with the band through this time and in the fall of 2006, with the insurgency reaching a fevered pitch, Vice co-founder Suroosh Alvi and VBS Producer Eddy Moretti decided to visit them."

For more information on "Heavy Metal in Baghdad", visit the film's official web site at this location. -->
http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/

The band's blog can be found here. -->
http://www.heavymetalinbaghdad.com/blog.php/
Click to expand...

I've seen bits and pieces of this before.  It's amazing how art can flourish in the most unlikely places, against all the odds...
 
a bit more on this:

ACRASSICAUDA Drummer Says Being Denied Visa To Enter Canada 'Made Me Feel Like A Terrorist' - Sep. 8, 2007 

Drummer Marwan Reyad of ACRASSICAUDA — the Iraqi heavy metal band which has been denied visas to attend the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where a documentary focusing on their story, "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" is currently being shown — has told Toronto's TheStar.com that the experience with a Canadian Embassy clerk was unpleasant, adding that the official basically refused to look at their documents and accused them of wanting to run away while in Canada.

"They made me feel like a terrorist ... I said, let me defend myself. This is the moment of our lives; this is a film we all want to watch, more than any other person down there. It's been an eight-year fucking journey down there, and we lived through the threats. People calling us Americanized, saying that they were going to kill us. Sure, we just moved on. We've been worrying about our lives and our families just for playing music that we love, that we're passionate about.

"They denied us that right in Iraq. They denied us that in Syria [the band is currently in Damascus, having fled Iraq to Syria]. They deny us even that right in the Canadian Embassy. So I'm not expecting any fucking democracy in this fucking world."

"Heavy Metal in Baghdad" tells the story of ACRASSICAUDA (translated from Arabic, it means "The Black Scorpion"), which is said to be Iraq's only heavy metal band. First covered in an article in Vice magazine, it was then made into a five-part short series that appeared earlier this year on their Web video offshoot, VBS.tv.

But with all the footage collected over the years, Vice decided the band could become the subject of the company's first full-length feature. The film tells the band's harrowing and touching story with humour and empathy. The handheld camera-shot documentary helps to humanize the Iraqi conflict.

Read more at http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Fi ... cle/253979
 
Forostar said:
ACRASSICAUDA (translated from Arabic, it means "The Black Scorpion")
Click to expand...

Actually, that's Latin. A few years back, the band was still known as A. Crassicauda. :smartarse:
 
'Metal: A Headbanger's Journey' Filmmaker Working On RUSH Documentary - Sep. 28, 2007 

According to RushIsABand.com, Sam Dunn — co-director of the acclaimed documentary "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey" — is currently working on a documentary on the legendary Canadian rock trio RUSH. Dunn was recently filming at RushCon — North America's international RUSH fan convention held in Toronto — and was also present at both of RUSH's recent Toronto shows.


:yey:
 
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