90s Music: The Smashing Pumpkins

Image by Natkin/Getty Images via Rolling Stone

The Smashing Pumpkins. They are easily one of the most loved and influential rock bands of the 1990s. They dominated the hearts and minds of a generation and today we ask a simple series of questions. How good were they? Does the music still hold up? Are the videos any good? Well, let's take a look!

I didn't get into the Pumpkins until way late, 2014. In one of the bad times of my life, I was introduced to them and fell in love. Their music spoke to me in the darkness and gave me some light at the end. Billy Corgan knew what I was going through, personally, and wrote songs just for me.

The Smashing Pumpkins formed in 1988 when a young Billy Corgan left Florida to return to his hometown of Chicago. There, he got a job in a record store and met James Iha. They both played guitar and started jamming together. Soon after, Corgan met D'Arcy Wretzky, who played bass and recruited her. The band was into the sad goth rock sound of New Order and The Cure, but the addition of jazz-influenced drummer Jimmy Chamberlin changed their style.

The Pumpkins performed for the first time at The Metro in Chicago on October 5, 1988. On October 19, they had a show filmed and shown on a local cable show called The Pulse. They continued to play live and recorded some singles. In 1991, they produced and released their debut album, Gish. Shortly after came their first music video.

Siva - 1991
Dir: Angela Conway 

This is a very “art-house” style video. Lots of clips of the band playing inter-spliced with shots of weird art pieces, flowers, a girl bathing, etc. Lots of different colored lights and strobe effects are used throughout. The editing is very frantic, matching the pace of the song. A solid video and a solid song, but nothing extraordinary. They have better songs and videos, even from their first album. Billy Corgan has LONG HAIR! I’m so used to seeing him with short hair or bald, it totally threw me off.  This song, along with its B-Side “Window Paine” was the first track of the Pumpkins to chart anywhere. #45 in New Zealand. I managed to find an interview clip from this time period here. A solid start.

Rhinoceros - 1991
Dir: Angela Conway 

Speaking of better songs and videos from the first album. Rhinoceros is a killer track. Siva is a great song, but this one is one of the first great Pumpkins songs. It sounds way more like the style they’d become famous for and was a good early indicator that this band was something special, and not just a fly-by-night grunge band. The video has the same director as Siva, so it has the same look and feels as that video. They show the band play and then cut to some weird artwork bathed in blue light then cut to the band walking around town, etc. The pacing and editing are slowed down because, well, this song is a bit slower than Siva. There are some really cool shots of D’Arcy playing with a white ball. They filmed it in slow-motion, then showed the footage running backward, so it creates a sick visual effect. I dig this song and the video is really solid too. They also performed the song on the BBC.

I Am One - 1992
Dir: Kevin Kerslake

A fairly generic video, but also not a bad vid. It’s footage from a live show with, again, some visual effects and lighting tricks thrown in. It’s awesome seeing them play live in their early days, but I’ll admit, the video is just kind of average. Good average, watch it if you're a fan, but I wouldn’t tell anyone they HAD to see it. This was their first song to make it onto the UK singles charts, peaking at #73.

Cherub Rock - 1993
Dir: Kevin Kerslake

Corgan gets a haircut! Headway towards baldness. Pun intended. The Smashing Pumpkins’ first album, Gish, was a solid outing, with hints of the greatness to come. The second album, Siamese Dream, was a masterpiece. If you ask a Pumpkins fan their favorite album from the band, many will say this one. They’d be wrong, it’s Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but it’s a good choice nonetheless. Cherub Rock, the first single and video from the album, is a banger. The video is more of the same as I Am One, featuring footage of the band playing, with flashing, colored strobe lights overlayed on them. It has a very broken and dirty look. Very typical of the day. The video is saved because, while I Am One was a good song, Cherub Rock is a terrific track. Sometimes a video can feel like a chore to watch, but this one felt refreshing, even if there was nothing special on the visuals side, the song is just that good. Corgan hated the filming process so bad, that they never worked with this director again. The song was nominated for “Best Hard Rock Performance” at the 1994 Grammy Awards, losing to “Plush” by the Stone Temple Pilots. Fun Fact: NASCAR used this song as the opening for the 1999 Busch Series (today Xfinity Series) race, the All-Pro Bumper to Bumper 300. Fun Fact #2: Professional wrestler Psicosis used this track as his theme song in Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW). Fun Fact #3: It was included as a playable track in both Guitar Hero III and the original Rock Band games.

The Pumpkins had an iconic performance of the song on Saturday Night Live on October 30, 1993. It's low quality, but the only one I could find. Here's another live clip, a bit better quality, but different performance. Finally, an acoustic version from Live on MTV Most Wanted with Ray Cokes in 1993.

Today - 1993
Dir: Stéphane Sednaoui

Here we go. The Pumpkins' previous songs and videos were good, and solid, but my god... Today is a masterpiece. What a track. There are actually 10 more videos after this one to talk about, and I have a feeling I’m going to run out of adjectives to describe the music. This is just a superb track in a line of great albums and singles. The song, musically, is very pretty and uplifting. Though the lyrics had a dark contrast. It was about a time when Corgan attempted suicide. He told Rolling Stone Magazine in their October 1993 issue: ”I was really suicidal ... I just thought it was funny to write a song that said today is the greatest day of your life because it can't get any worse." He also told Pitchfork Media in 2011 that writing ”Today" and "Disarm" were akin to “ripping [his] guts out"

The video is a step out of their usual M.O. too. It was really the first time they tried something different; more than just footage of the band playing with flashing strobe lights. The video also contrasts the super dark lyrics with something more visually bright and colorful. Corgan is driving an ice cream truck. He keeps seeing people making out and looks unhappy. So he drives into the desert. He picks up the guitar player, James, who is in a dress. They drive to a gas station in the middle of nowhere, where D’Arcy and Jimmy are “working.” James dresses up as a cowboy. They start casually screwing around with some paint cans before just deciding to go hog wild and splatter the whole truck with paint. They look like they’re having a blast like little kids would if given the opportunity. The band drives off and throws Corgan out of the truck. But he isn’t upset. He sees bunches of people making out in the desert, is covered in paint, puts on the cowboy hat James was wearing, and walks off with a happy stride in his step. The end. Awesome. 

The video was a combination of a memory Corgan had of an ice cream truck driver giving away all his ice cream to kids when he quit his job and the 1970 cult film Zabriskie Point. As far as James and the dress, you could say they were trying to be controversial, but I don’t think they were trying to be shocking, I think they were just being themselves because they don’t really make a big deal out of it in the video. They also don’t come across as a GG Allen-type band, who just do shocking things for the sake of being edgy. Today was also included in both Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band 2. Here are some live clips from Saturday Night Live, from the same 1993 episode with Cherub Rock, in addition to the dress rehearsal from the same show, and another on No Alternative.

Disarm - 1994
Dir: Jake Scott

Wow. Another masterpiece! The song was written on the same day as “Today,” but with a different musical tone. It's a very dark-sounding track with equally dark lyrics. Dark and bleak, with strings almost crying out with Corgan as he delivers lyrics like “The bitterness of one who’s left alone” and “The killer in me is the killer in you.” Corgan has stated that the song is both about his suicide day and the rough relationship he had with his parents.

As for the video, it’s beautifully shot in black-and-white with heavy use of shadows. Mostly it’s close-up shots of the band looking like they’re awkwardly flying through the sky over a gothic-looking house, almost like they’re spirits. There’s also an old man walking and home video-style footage of a young boy playing. Wikipedia says that boy (Sean Adams) now goes by a female name (Amber Adams), but there’s no citation to support it and I can’t find anything on it online about it, one way or another.

The video got heavy, heavy airtime on MTV. However, across the pond, “Disarm” was banned from Top of the Pops on the BBC, and didn’t receive much UK airplay, due to controversy that the song was about abortion. It still managed to hit #11 on the UK Singles charts, though. The song was also nominated for “Best Alternative Video” and “Best Editing” at the 1994 MTV Music Awards, ultimately losing to Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” and R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts,” respectively.

Here's footage of the song at Woodstock '94, with the crowd singing along. Awesome!

Rocket - 1994
Dir: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris 

Okay, so, after the seriousness and darkness of the last two videos, "Rocket" is rather silly. And I don’t think the song is as good as the last three songs, but it’s still fun. The premise of the video is that the Pumpkins are aliens, performing wearing silver jumpsuits, and these kids pick up their transmission signal. They have this headquarters in a junkyard where they can pick up alien broadcasts. It looks like something I’d build in Fallout 4, honestly. So the kids decide to go see them, so they build a rocket ship. The parents see what they’re doing and don’t care, because they're parents. The kids build their ship and surprise surprise surprise, it works! They fly off into space and go to the Pumpkins' home planet. I won’t spoil the ending, but it has a rather funny twist. So it’s a good song, a fun video, and very imaginative. It feels very much a product of its time, as opposed to something timeless like “Disarm." I don’t think you can say that about “Rocket.” Not saying it’s bad, just that it isn’t quite as good.

"Rocket" was the fourth and final video from Siamese Dream. The album was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 1994 Grammys, but lost to U2's Zooropa.

Bullet With Butterfly Wings - 1995
Dir: Samuel Bayer

“Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.” One of my favorite lyrical statements describing your frustrations with the world. It doesn’t matter how angry you get or how much you lash out at the world around you. You can get as angry as you want, but you still can't escape your circumstances. That mental feeling of beating against a metaphorical cage, mentally screaming because you can't get out. This isn't the healthiest mental outlook, certainly. But do I still feel the pain that Corgan wrote? Yeah, I do. Mental illness sucks.

“Bullet With Butterfly Wings” was the first single, and first video, from the band's third album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The video featured a bunch of shirtless, ragged men in a mud pit, struggling to escape, but unable to. The visuals were based on the work of Sebastião Salgado, a Brazillian photojournalist, in particular his photos of gold mining. I recommend googling him and checking out his work, it’s good aesthetically and heartbreaking in the subject matter. In contrast, the band debuted a brand new wardrobe, inspired by glam rock. Bullet is also the video debut of Corgan’s iconic “Zero” shirt.

A solid video and an amazing song, it won them their first Grammy in 1997, for “Best Hard Rock Performance.” It was also certified Gold and their first Top 40 hit in the US, peaking at #22. Wrestling promotion Total Nonstop Action used it as the theme song for their 2009 Lockdown Pay-Per-View. Ironic, since Corgan attempted to buy TNA (now IMPACT! Wrestling) a few years later. "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" was used in the trailers for the games Dead Space 2 and Battlefield 1, and it was playable in Guitar Hero 5. The movie Rampage uses it as does the show Whale Wars. South Park likewise used it in the season 13 episode “Whale Whores” which pokes fun at Whale Wars.

1979 - 1996
Dir: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Maybe the best song the band ever released, a simple, pretty melody with Corgan singing about his coming of age experiences in 1979 when he was 12. There’s an interesting article about the making of the song and the video, it’s a very interesting read, far more than what I could easily summarize here.

The video has two parts to it that keep cutting back and forth. One is Corgan riding in the backseat of a car, singing the song. The rest of the video shows a bunch of kids, in what looks like the late 70s, doing rebellious kid stuff. They go to a party, drink, make out, stare thoughtfully out at the distance, wreck a convenience store, ya know. Typical kid's shenanigans. It’s the kind of activity that makes the adult in me go “Wow, someone needs to reign these kids in.” But the kid in me feels nostalgic and wishes for those days of simplicity. My teenage years were never like this, and even my young adult years in the Naughties weren’t this crazy. I was pretty boring and never caused problems. But parts of the video, the hanging out, trying to have a good time in our unique way, yeah… I remember that. I don’t think the video is meant to be autobiographical as much as it’s supposed to convey feelings. And feelings are what it has in spades. I love this video and the song, I could/have listened to it on repeat over and over.

“1979” was the Pumpkins’ highest charting single in the US, hitting #12. It was certified Gold in the US and Silver in the UK. It was nominated for two Grammy awards in 1997: “Record of the Year” and “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.” They would lose to Eric Clapton’s “Change the World” and Dave Matthews Band “So Much to Say.” The fact that the Smashing Pumpkins lost Grammy Awards to Clapton and Dave Matthews makes me sad, especially when the song is “1979.” It did, however, win “Best Alternative Video” at the 1996 MTV Music Video Awards.

Fun fact to make you feel old. If this song was released today it would be called "2005."

Zero - 1996

Dir: Yelena Yemchuk

Zero is a pretty simple video and a pretty simple song. Not a bad song by any means, it’s got some great lyrics, and a good hard rock performance. The video is set in what looks like an Eyes Wide Shut kind of party, with the band performing for entertainment while the guests wear fancy clothes and creepy masks. It’s a good song and video but, ultimately, kind of forgettable, especially since it comes right after “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “1979” and directly before our next video…

Tonight, Tonight - 1996
Dir: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

God. “Tonight, Tonight.” I mentioned previously that The Smashing Pumpkins were one of a few things that helped me in a rough patch in 2014. I could identify with a song like “Disarm” or “1979” or “Galapogus” but the one that hit me hard was “Tonight, Tonight.” There was something about the… hopefulness of the lyrics that made me believe I might actually have a chance at accomplishing what I was dreaming of. Did I get what I wanted at the time? No. Not much of it anyway. But it kept me going nonetheless. And at that point, I needed to believe I could achieve more than anything else. I’m sharing this to show how much this song and band mean to me. I have bad days, mentally, and I've been in some really dark, bad places in my mind. But the fact that I’m still here and pushing and trying and hoping means that some of the ideas represented in this song are part of who I am now. 

As for the video, it's truly a work of art. Taking inspiration from early silent films, such as From the Earth to the Moon. It's highly stylized and features the band playing for a flickering camera, like an old movie. The story is about a couple who take a trip on a zeppelin, end up on the moon fighting moon people, get back to earth, watch a show under the sea, and return to the surface. It's difficult to really do justice as to how striking and unique the video is, I highly encourage you to watch it.

Corgan wrote the song for himself, who also escaped from the traumas of his life by believing in himself. Poetically, it's some of his best work. "Time is never time at all/You can never ever leave/Without leaving a piece of youth" and that end chorus which ends in the beautiful line "Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight."

"Tonight, Tonight" was robbed of the Grammy for Best Music Video in 1997 to The Beatles "Free As a Bird." That was a good video, but it only won a Grammy because it was The Beatles, let's be real here. But "Tonight, Tonight" did win six MTV VMA's in 1996: Video of the Year, Breakthrough Video, Best Direction, Best Special Effects, Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography.

Thirty-Three - 1996
Dir: Billy Corgan and Yelena Yemchuk 

The fifth and final single/video from Mellon Collie is the beautifully simple melodic "Thirty-Three." A basic melody with lyrics about looking toward the future, it is an absolutely beautiful song, and perfect as the final single.

The video is wonderful in its simplicity as well. Each shot looks like a photograph or painting, but the characters are moving, kind of stop motion-like. It looks like photographs that come alive. The highlight for me I think is D'Arcy, one part dressed up as Alice from Alice in Wonderland, while a person in a bunny suit stares at her from the background. In another scene, she sits atop a white horse while she looks like a green alien girl from the original Star Trek. Awesome. I found a behind-the-scenes video on YouTube, showing how they shot the video, as well as a live performance on VH1 Storytellers where Corgan talks about the writing of the song  I love Thirty-Three, another amazing video from The Smashing Pumpkins.

Like I said, this was the final video from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The album would lose the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album to Beck's Odelay which, I disagree with, but fair, that album was amazing. However, both Beck and the Pumpkins (along with The Fugees' phenomenal The Score) would lose Album of the Year to... ugh... Celine Dion's Falling into You. Just tying that out makes me queasy. A crime against humanity.

"Thirty-Three" was Corgan's last time directing a video until 2018. It was also the final Top 40 hit for the band, peaking at #39, but they would go on to have multiple other Top 10 Alternative singles. Tragically, this was the first single released after the death of their keyboardist, Jonathan Melvoin. It was also the first single after the firing of long-time drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who does not appear in the video.

Melvoin was invited to play on tour, but on July 11, 1996, he and Chamberlain overdosed on heroin in New York City. Chamberlain was arrested and fired from the band, however, Melvoin passed away. Corgan decided to continue the tour with replacements, a decision that he later regretted. There's an interview about it here. Rock N' Roll True Stories has a great video on the incident.

James and D'Arcy had a short interview on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1997. Conan O'Brien had the Pumpkins play on February 25th of 97, a great version of "Muzzle." They came back to Conan on the 13th of March to do a hilarious comedy bit with Max Weinberg. Watch this if you watch nothing else in this post.

The End Is the Beginning Is the End - 1997
Dir: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Oh, boy. Before we get to the videos for the Pumpkins' final 90s album, we take a quick detour into soundtrack territory. And is this a doozy. At first, I thought this could be interesting. The director duo behind "Rocket," "1979," and "Tonight, Tonight." I was looking forward to it until I saw that it had input from Joel Schumacher. That's right. This is a song and video for the soundtrack of the best comic book movie of the 90s, Batman & Robin!

The video begins with a pan of Batman's cowl and then zooms into his eye slit and we see the Smashing Pumpkins playing. Does this mean they're inside Batman's head like Inside Out? Or does he play them while he's fighting crime? Or, in my theory, Billy Corgan is Batman. Which makes D'Arcy Robin and James Batgirl (you heard me right). This also means that Jimmy Chamberlain is Mr. Freeze. I like this canon.

If you've ever wanted to see the Pumpkins dress in all black and play an average Pumpkins song in front of clips of Batman & Robin, here you are. The only thing I liked about the video was the designs of the instruments. The guitar, bass, and drums all had this... Schumacher futuristic look to them. I honestly think they look pretty cool. Impractical as hell, but still cool.

The song charted well and even won a damn Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. Almost like saying "Sorry we passed on you for Album of the Year... But here's a Hard Rock award!" It was also nominated for several awards at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards but failed to win any. But even with that, End is the Beginning is the End isn't a song the Pumpkins are likely to play live today. It was the only non-album video from the decade and remains their only video based on a movie today. It is also the first song and only video appearance of drummer Matt Walker, who played on some of the next album before leaving the band.

The Pumpkins also recorded a slower, softer version called The Beginning is the End is the Beginning for the movie, which was used in a trailer for 2008's DC movie The Watchmen. That song also charted and the Pumpkins did play it live, at the time.

Ava Adore - 1998
Dir: Dom and Nic

Billy Corban went from singing "The world is a vampire" to playing a vampire in a music video. "Ava Adore" is the first of two singles from the new album, Adore, and a bit of a departure for the band. A mix of more electronica with alternative rock. But Corgan's songwriting prowess remains strong, with the chorus and hook being catchy as hell. It's honestly one of my Top 5 favorite tracks from the band.

The video also maintains the band's usual approach to creativity. It all appears to be one long take with parts of the band moving in slow motion or speed up, but maintaining perfect lip sync. It must have been a bitch and a half to film but it looks flawless. The band is dressed up as vampires, walking through various horror or adventure movie sets on a long soundstage. Corgan in particular looks like Nosferatu, his shaved head blending perfectly with the pasty white makeup and gothic outfit. D'Arcy and James are great as well, displaying their usual commitment to whatever weird characters they're playing.

The song is great. The video is rad. It charted well. Check it out.

Perfect - 1998
Dir: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Jesus. Okay, the first thing I've got to say is that Corgan looks like a total dork in this video. He's got on this shirt that shows off just a bit too much of his neck and shoulders, like the neck of the shirt has been stretched out. And he has on a cowboy hat. And standing on top of a crane. He goes from being cool, gothic vampire Corgan to lame urban cowboy Corgan.

As for the song itself, well... "Perfect" isn't bad. But it isn't perfect either (see what I did there?). Not counting the Batman and Robin song, this is probably their weakest single of the decade. I don't want to say it's bad, it's just average. A laid-back, mellow tune kind of like "1979” only not nearly as good as that track.

The video, their final collaboration with this director duo, serves as a sequel to the video for "1979.” They got most of the kids (now going adults) back, and it shows them intersecting each other's lives, like in the movie Crash. James reprises his old role as a convenience store clerk, even.

Where "1979" showed kids reveling in the glory days of an idealized youth, "Perfect" is about the realities of post-high-schools young adulthood, with old friendships splintered and the reality of having to conquer adult situations. It's not a bad video, but it kind of feels like an unnecessary sequel. They would go on David Letterman to play the song live. There's also a "Making Of" video online here.

This was the second and final single for the album Adore, as well as their final video of the 90s.

Unfortunately, things would go downhill for the band, fast. Drummer Matt Walker recorded most of Adore but was replaced briefly by Kenny Aronoff, who is the drummer in the "Perfect" video and song, as well as other tracks. There was even a third drummer on the album, Matt Cameron who played on "For Marie." Aronoff remained until Chamberlain rejoined the band in early 1999. 

The full lineup wouldn't last long. D'Arcy left the band in September of 1999. The reasons why depend on who you ask. D'Arcy wanted to get into acting. Corgan later said he fired her for being a "mean-spirited drug addict who refused to get help." If you want to delve into the whole rabbit hole of the Corgan vs D'Arcy feud, you can get started here and here and here and here and here and here and here. Regardless, she was replaced by Melissa Auf der Maur and barely recorded on the next two Pumpkins albums, Machina/The Machines of God and Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music, both released in 2000. Corgan played most of the tracks himself.

On December 2, 2000, the Smashing Pumpkins played their "last" show and officially disbanded. 

Corgan would reform the band in 2006 with drummer Chamberlin, then James would officially rejoin in 2018. D'Arcy has never played with them again and, honestly, probably never will. But that's all tales and info for another day.

There are tons and tons of videos online if you want to know more about The Smashing Pumpkins. There's a Rockumentry from 1995. Lie Likes Music talks about Corgan's depression. Rock N' Roll True Stories has an excellent overview of the Pumpkins' feud in the 90s with Pavement here. There are some amazing early performances that were captured on video, such as The Pulse Basement in 1988, The Metro club in 1990, Reckless Records in Chicago in 1991, New Year's Eve at the Metro on 12/31/91, and the Redding Festival in 1992. Some early interviews that I found entertaining from 1991, a second on Japanese TV 1991, 1991's WFNX Birthday Bash, MTV's 120 Minutes, 1992, and an adorable one of Corgan interviewing D'Arcy in 1994. No animosity, they all seem to genuinely like each other. 

Some non-musical information about Corgan, did you know that he is a huge wrestling fan? I'm 2001, he made an appearance in ECW. He formed his own company in 2011, Resistance Pro Wrestling. He joined Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2015, becoming its president for a brief time in 2016, before leaving and failing to buy the company. However, in 2017, he purchased the National Wrestling Alliance, once the biggest wrestling organization in the world, but has been a footnote for most of 30 years. He successfully rebranded the organization, taking advantage of YouTube as a streaming power, and has been regularly running content online. Corgan has a dream to rebuild the NWA to global prominence, we'll see if he can pull it off, but the product is solid and well worth checking out if you like wrestling.

So that's The Smashing Pumpkins video output in the 90s. I didn't get to all their tracks, with "Gallapogas" off Mellon Collie and their non-album cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide" being two of my favorites from them, which you should check out. If I had to recommend one album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, followed very closely by Siamese Dream. But they're all good. They are easily one of the best 90s bands. Hopefully, I will be seeing them in November, they will be playing in Anaheim with Jane's Addiction and Poppy and I very much plan on being there. The Pumpkins and Jane's Addiction were on Howard Stern recently and did a dreamy cover of "Jane Says" together.

One last thing before I say goodbye. I'm a strong advocate for mental health, and I talked a lot about depression in this post, both my own and Billy Corgan's. I've had to call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline a couple of times over the years, and it has helped tremendously when I did. Please, if you ever feel that urge and can't control it, please call them 1-800-273-TALK/8255. They'll be there for you.

So lastly, yes, this is a new blog post. I'm feeling better but still trying not to sit at a computer as often as I would like. Posting new content will still be sporadic for the near future, but I'm still here and not going anywhere. I look forward to seeing you soon and posting some spooky content for Halloween in October. Until next time, remember... The world is a vampire...

Stand By Me (1986)

Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB

Hey guys! Hope your Thursday has treated you well. I don't have a lot to say today or any announcements, so let's just get into the review!

Stand By Me is another movie I'm not going to go into detail with the plot because the reward for this movie is the journey the characters take. The story is simple. Watching these characters grow is interesting. The movie is set in 1959 and involves four friends (played by Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O'Connell) who go on a journey through the woods to see a dead body. Wheaton has recently lost his older brother (played wonderfully in flashbacks by the incredible John Cusack). He wants to be a writer, but his parents barely acknowledged him before his brother died, and now not at all afterward. Phoenix comes from a family of delinquents. Feldman is obsessed with the military, since his dad was a WWII vet, even though he's locked in a mental hospital. O'Connell's older brother is part of a gang, led by Kiefer Sutherland.

Nothing can go wrong when you're walking down train tracks.
Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB

On their journey, they confront their own personal traumas and grow from boys to young men. Especially Wheaton's character, the story essentially focuses on him. Again, as much as I want to talk about individual scenes with you guys, this is a movie you need to see for yourselves. If you have seen it, message me so we can talk about it.

The movie is bookended by Richard Dreyfuss, playing an older version of Wheaton's character, reflecting on his childhood. Now he's an adult, a successful author, and has a son of his own. And he relates to his son through his own past experiences.

Sutherland would get more deadly with a knife in 24.
Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB

Stand By Me was given a limited release on August 8, 1986, and a wide release on August 22. It was a big hit, making over $52 million on a budget of $8 million. The movie is based on a Stephen King novella "The Body." King said, at the time, that it was the best film adaptation of his work that had been done. There was even a story change near the end that King loved. In the novella, Phoenix's character picks up the gun, but it's Wheaton's character in the movie. From a storytelling standpoint, that makes perfect sense, since this is ultimately Wheaton's story. King loved the change, he said it made much more sense than what he wrote. He was so enamored with Reiner and Stand By Me that, a few years later, he made it clear when it came time to sell the film rights to Misery, that Reiner had to produce or direct it, which he did both. But that's another movie for another time. Personally, I enjoy adaptations of King's supernatural horror work, but with a couple of exceptions (1976's Carrie and 1980's The Shining), I think the best adaptations are the ones where the story is grounded in reality. Stand By Me, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile are all cinema classics. You can hear Reiner talking about the Stephen King stuff, as well as talking about how the movie reflected his relationship with his own father, in an interview with EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG here.

Child actors usually aren't that impressive, but honestly, in the mid-80s you couldn't get much better than Wheaton, Phoenix, Feldman, and O'Connell in a movie starring four pre-teen boys. Honestly, I was kinda blown away by Wheaton in this. I've only seen him in Star Trek: The Next Generation and, to be blunt, he's not very good in that. And that's not his fault, he's a kid, and they weren't pulling compelling performances out of him. And to be even more honest, except for maybe Patrick Stewart, most of the acting on Star Trek TNG (especially the early seasons) isn't anything to write home about. But it's good to see Wheaton in something that old where he gives an amazing performance. The chemistry the four boys have, especially Wheaton and Phoenix, feels real. Reiner had the four boys play theater improv games together for two weeks to create a bond between themselves. And it shows. You can get a sense of this in a 1986 Entertainment Tonight interview with three of the boys. I also recommend this interview with O'Connell in 2019, it's pretty entertaining. In particular, he mentions being called "hyper-active" when he was a child, which is the same thing I was called by adults when I was a kid. I hadn't thought of that phrase in thirty years.

I don't care what the official "behind-the-scene" story is, I'm convinced that Feldman only smoke real ciggies.
Image by Columbia Pictures via Gunaxin

Filming of Stand By Me took place in Oregon and parts of Northern California. The movie itself is set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Oregon, which threw me off at first. Castle Rock is a town used in many Stephen King stories and adaptations, but it's generally set in Maine. Much of the filming took place in Brownsville, Oregon, and the town has adopted July 23rd as Stand By Me Day. They have held an annual celebration since 2007.

The soundtrack for the movie is filled with period-appropriate rock and roll, centered by the title track, "Stand By Me" recorded by Ben E. King. The song was a #4 hit in 1961 and, due to the success of the movie, reentered and hit #9 in the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986.

The movie's scriptwriters, Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans, were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It remains one of the most beloved movies to come out of the 80s, with 1991's Boyz n the Hood and 1995's Now and Then paying homage to it. 

River Phoenix was such a good actor. RIP.
Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB

Final Thoughts

Just in case you couldn't tell from me gushing about this movie through the review, I really loved it. I can't find much to nitpick. It's a great adaptation of Stephen King's novella and a great coming-of-age film itself. The acting is great, the production is fantastic, the music is catchy, and the dialogue is memorable. It's funny, it's powerful, it's meaningful. I honestly can't even think of anything to nitpick. Watch this movie. You won't regret it.

That's what I thought, anyway. Go to JustWatch and see where it's streaming. And tell me what you think, if you do watch it or have seen it, I'd love to hear your opinion.

"What if you could travel to parallel worlds? The same year, the same Earth, only different dimensions.... My friends and I found the gateway. Now the problem is... finding a way back home."
Image by Columbia Pictures via IMDB

Next time, I finally complete my destiny and finish the Troll Quadrilogy. We're gonna talk about the OTHER Troll 3 (aka The Crawlers aka Creepers aka Contamination .7). Four Troll movies down. Do we finally get a legit good movie? Or is this another stinker? Come back next time to find out!

For Richer or Poorer (1997)

Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Long time no blog! Again. Seems like every time I get some momentum going, something happens. I am currently struggling with lymphedema, which is a circulation issue in my legs. When I stopped blogging, I had an infection, and the pain was so great that I was having a hard time thinking. It's much better now but still will require long-term treatment. But the good news is the pain is mostly gone and, when it's around, is far more bearable now.

Actual photo of me most days.
Image by Pixabay via Vic_B

So, it's time to get into the review that I know everyone has been hotly anticipating: 1997's For Richer or Poorer. To say that Tim Allen was red hot in 1997 was an understatement. His smash hit sitcom, Home Improvement, was on its seventh season. In the years prior he had dipped into feature films, starting in the hit The Santa Clause (1994) and voicing Buzz Lightyear in the mega-smash Toy Story (1995). Kirstie Alley was still riding the fame she received as a star on Cheers and was just starting a new sitcom, Veronica's Closet. She also had ventured into successful feature films, including the Look Who's Talking series (1989-1993) and Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997). Also in a supporting role is Wayne Knight, another huge star in 1997, appearing regularly on one of the biggest shows of the decade, Seinfeld, as well as an important supporting role in the record-breaking Jurassic Park in 1993. For Richer or Poorer has honestly a great core cast and they were all hugely popular at the time of this movie. This movie should have been a huge hit. So why is it only remembered, vaguely, as that Amish movie with Tim Allen on the poster?

The movie starts with the opening credits, "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays is playing, the most stereotypical song about the rich. We see lots of images of things that rich people do. Like drinking champagne and paying for things with credit cards. There's a really funny bit showing a receipt and one of the items is a $4200 "virtual game." What kind of virtual games existed in 1997, let alone cost $4200? We fade into Wayne Knight being grilled by some IRS agents about potential tax fraud. Next, Allen and Alley are at a party, their 10th Anniversary. Allen takes this as an opportunity to pitch his new real estate development idea, a Biblically themed theme park called... The Holy Land! Complete with a wine bar called "Water into Wine," a burning bush, and a water slide for the "Jewish and Japanese guests" called "Torah! Torah! Torah!" A judge comes up through the crowd only to get her dress caught on fire from the burning bush. Allen puts it out with his glass of wine. If you think she'll come back later in the movie to play an important part, ding ding ding, winner winner chicken dinner!

After the party ends in disaster, Allen and Alley fight in their apartment. She wants a divorce. The marriage is over. The next day, Wayne Knight is trying to get out of the building with boxes of paperwork. Allen calls him into his office to show off some of his new, rich person purchases. Knight gets away and Allen goes to the bank. His accounts are locked. Confused, he calls Knight, who confesses that the IRS is looking into his company for funds misappropriation. Tim the Toolman then gets confronted by some IRS agents. It's from here that we are joined by Larry Miller's character, who is legit the only consistently funny thing in this movie. He plays an IRS agent by way of Dirty Harry, even referencing Harry later in the movie. He carries a gun and the first thing he tries to do when he sees Allen is shoot at him. This prompts Allen to flee the scene in a super awkward foot chase. Allen's business coat is buttoned the whole time while he's running and it looks weird. He steals a cab and accidentally picks up his wife, and they both flee to the country. They wreck the cab and end up in Amish territory.

Oooooooh! I can't wait for all the clever Amish jokes!
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

At this point, I won't bother going into a scene-by-scene breakdown of the rest of the movie, because I guarantee that you know exactly where the plot of this film goes. The two New Yorkers, Allen and Alley, pose as distant cousins to an Amish family, so they can hideout. It's a fish out of water story, as the city folk get used to a lack of indoor plumbing and tolling the fields for the first time. The cousins they are impersonating have well-known skills that they are expected to demonstrate (Allen with horse wrangling and Alley with cross-stitching), to comedic effect. A few jokes are cracked about the Amish, but way fewer than I thought there would be. They keep saying things an Amish person wouldn't normally say, and then say they come from a "liberal order" community. After a couple of weeks of getting up at 5 am and working hard all day, they start to enjoy it because country living is pure and clean and wholesome and blah blah blah. Then they start using their New York skillz to help their new Amish friends (Allen with real estate negotiation and Alley with fashion design) and help change the community for the better. Just when Allen and Alley's marriage starts to get back together, the IRS and a police task force show up. 

Deus Ex Policeina
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Conveniently, at that exact same moment, the cousins that Allen and Alley have been impersonating also arrive in the village. So the New Yorkers go to court for their crimes, and their lawyer shows up late. Turns out that Wayne Knight had stolen all the money for himself, has been on the run, and the lawyer just happened to find him in the nick of time. Oh and the courtroom scene has the same judge from earlier, the one Allen threw the wine on at the party. Allen punches Knight in the courtroom, which I'm sure LegalEagle would take points away from for "Legal Realism." The case is thrown out! Allen and Alley are innocent, not only of tax fraud (which they were) but also apparently of stealing a cab and resisting arrest. Okay.

In the last scene, we end up with Allen and Alley returning to the Amish farm to apologize to the family, who they had gotten close with. This leads into another of the few funny parts of the movie, as the Amish dude (Jay O. Sanders, but he LOOKS just like Will Ferrell) smiles and says "You English think you are so smart. You really think we didn't know?" Turns out they figured out that Allen and Alley weren't their cousins pretty quickly, but didn't say anything because it was planting season and they needed the extra help. Absolutely classic, I love it! The movie ends most predictably, with the two New Yorkers giving up their greedy, materialistic, big city way of life to settle down on a farm in the country with their Amish neighbors.

Actual photo of Tim the Toolman reading the script of For Richer or Poorer
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Phew. That was a ride. For Richer or Poorer wasn't as bad as I was expecting, but it wasn't very good, either. It had some high points. The acting isn't bad, on a base level. Everything is well made, visually. You get some of those weird camera angles that 90s movies were known for. I laughed a few times, also. There's a part where Tim Allen says "I know how these people work, I've seen Witness'" and that cracked me up. Everything with Larry Miller and Wayne Knight was gold. The ending, where we find out that the Amish family knew they were imposters all along, but needed the help, I think is a great little twist.

But ultimately, the movie is just boring and forgettable. The plot is almost as by-the-book as you can get. I didn't care about the story, didn't care about any of the characters or their journeys. Allen and Alley have no chemistry, which is fine if they don't love each other, but that's not the path the movie goes. There were a few laughs, but most of the jokes fell flat. And Tim Allen kept trying to do this... slapstick kind of humor. Falling and getting dragged by a horse and the like. Also, he made a lot of these... weird faces throughout the movie. I don't know what he was trying to do, but it isn't funny because I'm not three years old. Some of the comedy seems like it was aimed at young children, but it was rated PG-13 and had swearing in it. So what the hell. 

It's like someone told Allen to constantly make faces like he's taking a poop.
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Also, it's TWO HOURS LONG! Why was this so long? You could have trimmed AT LEAST 20 minutes out of this movie, if not a whole 30-40 mins. The part where Allen is running, on foot, from the IRS? Gone. The part where he shows off all his cool, materialistic possessions to Wayne Knight? Gone. The part where Alley feeds Allen lung casserole at the Amish farm? Gone. The Holy Land presentation? Trimmed. See I just saved you like 10-15 minutes, just off the top of my head. You're welcome.

I will give it credit in that it's far less offensive than I was afraid it would be. There are still some tasteless Amish jokes, but there aren't many. Frankly, the most offensive part of the whole thing is the religious theme park idea. I'll admit, I like crass, offensive humor. I love South Park, usually. And when he first unveiled the park concept, I laughed. But then the bit went on and on and on, giving him plenty of time to make fun of Christians, Jews, and the Japanese. And after a while, it went from being funny to not funny to cringy.

Actual photo of Allen talking to the director.
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

The movie opened on December 12, 1997. I wouldn't call this movie a "flop" at the box office, but it did only make back $32.7 million from its budget of $35 million. $35 million? How the hell did this movie cost $35 million to make? How much did Allen and Alley get paid for this? $35 million in 1997 money is almost $62 million in 2022 money. For comparison, The Addams Family had a budget of $30 million. Nothing But Trouble cost $40 million. Jurassic Park was $63 million. All those movies had a bigger cast of stars and tons of elaborate practical or computer effects, you can see that budget cost on the screen. But with For Richer or Poorer, I just don't see where the money went, while watching the movie.

Final Thoughts

I think the most damning thing about For Richer or Poorer is, while I was watching, I realized about 2/3 of the way in that I had seen this movie before and completely forgotten that I had ever watched it. Many many moons ago, I know I must have rented this. The fact that it took me that long to remember should tell you what a lasting impression it had on me. It isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, by a long shot, but it is ultimately forgettable in the end.

But that's just what I thought today. Ask me in a year and I'll be all "What? What movie?" But if you want to see it yourself to form your own equally valid opinions, JustWatch will tell you where it's streaming.

Actual photo of Wayne Knight on the phone with his agent... okay, I think I killed that joke...
Image by Universal Pictures via IMDB

Next time, we're gonna take a step into the 80s and talk about one of the decade's most acclaimed coming-of-age stories, 1986's Stand By Me. Will this Stephen King adaptation live up to the hype? Or will it not be able to stand on its own legs? Tune in next time to find out!

On hold... Again...

Seems like I'm always putting this thing on hold whenever I get some momentum going.

I have a really bad infection. I'm working with a doctor to figure out what it is. I'm sure it'll get better, but I am in incredible pain most of the time right now. Even taking pain relief... I can't sit down at my computer for long periods of time. And when I do, I have a different project I'm working on, that I might actually get paid for.

So for the five people who actually read this blog, I'm sorry, I'll be back but I can't do it right now.

Gimme Shelter (1970)

Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

Wazzup! Did you have a good weekend? Sorry for the delay in writing a review, I worked a lot this last week, so I didn't have tons of time and energy to devote to writing. Also, they pulled the other version of Troll 3 from streaming, so I can't get to that right now. But I will eventually! So until then, we're going to talk about a documentary film I've wanted to watch for quite some time. 1970's Rolling Stones concert documentary, Gimme Shelter.

I love The Rolling Stones. I grew up listening to Oldies Radio, back when Oldies Radio was music from 1955-72ish. Back when it was about 65% Motown and 35% blues-based rock and roll. The kind of station that focused way more on some (not all) of the Top 40 rock songs from that era, the earlier recordings of The Beatles and Rolling Stones, and covers of Bob Dylan but never Dylan himself. Later on in life, even though I started exploring music much more, there was a period of time when I wouldn't buy an album if I didn't recognize less than two songs. "If it's any good, it will be on their Greatest Hits," I used to say to myself. God, I want to punch that younger version of me. There were some albums that started to wear me out of this awful habit, The Beatles' White Album being one. Queen's Innuendo and Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection are others. But Exile on Main St by the Rolling Stones was the final one that broke that habit for good. After hemming and hawing for over a year, I finally bought it. I was captivated. The music was raw, dirty, sleazy, I couldn't get enough! They used profanity on the record! I had never heard Rocks Off, Rip This Joint, Sweet Virginia, Loving Cup, Shine a Light... but then I wanted to hear nothing more. In 2019, while I was making decent money for once, I treated my brother and myself to see the Stones at the Rose Bowl. It's been a long-running joke since the 1980s that "this might be the last tour." But as the years go on, we are getting closer and closer to that "last tour" and I made the call that we needed to see them now. Great decision. An amazing live show! And since then, Charlie Watts has sadly passed away. I'm so glad we got to see him play. Safe to say, the Stones are in my all-time Top Ten musical performers, I love them. 

But seriously, Mick, what the hell are you doing?
Image by The Rolling Stones via Wikipedia

My love affair with them aside, the whole purpose of this film was a complete, foolish disaster. I'm going to give you a very condensed, cliff notes version of what happened. So essentially, the Stones were inspired to do a free concert in San Francisco. The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and others did free concerts in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco all the time. It was going to be the Woodstock of the West Coast. The Stones got both those bands, as well as some other bay area artists, to sign up for it. Well in a press conference, Mick Jagger drops the bombshell that they're going to do a free concert in downtown San Francisco on December 6, 1969. I believe this is the first time that SF heard about it because the city basically responded with "The hell you are." The rationale being that, while the park can contain Jefferson Airplane fans, it wouldn't be able to handle the massive crowd that the Stones would draw. Can you imagine 100,000-300,000 fans descending onto downtown San Francisco? It would have been a total disaster! More so than it ended up being. So they moved the venue to Sears Point Raceway in Napa, which is where I used to attend NASCAR races in the 90s with my Dad. I can't tell what the exact official reason was, but Sears Point backed out not long before the concert. It was because of money or fear of the raceway being damaged or something or other. Probably all that. Anyway, Altamont Speedway in Livermore stepped up and offered their track. So about three days before the concert, crews had to disassemble the stage and lighting rigs they had already set up, drive them 80 miles to Altamont, and set it up there. And here's where we get into our first issue. Not counting things like gigs in bars and small places like that, every professional concert I've been to has a stage around 8-10 feet off the ground. They always have a guardrail keeping the fans on one side. And between the guardrail and stage is a small empty space for security. This is to ensure that no one can get onto the stage. At Altamont, there was no such guardrail or space. And the stage was four feet off the ground. That's because it was designed to be used at Sears Point, on a hill. But at Altamont, it was in a valley. Fans were right there, right where the performers were.

The second horrendously bad idea was that they didn't hire security for the event. Jagger hated cops. So they decided to hire the Hells Angels instead. What the hell. The Grateful Dead had used them as security before, and it went alright. But not this time. They weren't paid in money, but $500 in beer ($4000 in beer in today's money, that's a lot of booze in both decades). Remember how I said that, in a proper concert, police will be in that space between the fans and stage? And sometimes, if you look carefully, you can see them hiding just off the stage, just in case. Not at Altamont. The Angels were sitting and standing all over the stage, constantly walking in front of the performers. That's when they weren't getting into fights with fans, beating them with pool cues that they brought as weapons. It was a mess.

Normally I make little jokes in these captions, but I'm not making fun of any Hells Angels
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

Now, there are some good moments to this film. It essentially falls into three segments. The first is the Stones tour before Altamont. And there is some great footage of them doing parts of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "You Gotta Move," "Brown Sugar," "Love in Vain," "Honkey Tonk Women," and "Street Fighting Man." We also get to see Ike and Tina Turner perform "I've Been Loving You Too Long" at Madison Square Garden. Jagger looks iconic on stage, wearing an Uncle Sam hat for some of the footage. 

Mick Jagger Wants You! I don't know, I couldn't think of anything better. Leave me your best funny captions for this photo in the comments.
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

We also get to see the band at the famous Muscle Shoals recording studio, listening to the final mix of "Wild Horses" for the first time. It's a mesmerizing scene, watching them just zone out to one of their greatest songs. The part that I find hilarious about this whole thing is that the Stones are dressed exactly like you'd expect them to be. Silk shirts, leather pants, Jagger has a scarf so long it drags on the ground. They look like rock stars. How they're staying in a Holiday Inn. And, maybe Holiday Inn was considered high-class in 1969, but I also have to think... how could they not afford something better? The filmmakers, Albert and David Maysles, actually filmed the Stones concert at Madison Square Garden, which is where much of the pre-Altamont concert footage comes from. They asked if they could join in with the rest of the tour, and the Stones agreed. 

The biggest complaint I have about the documentary is the overall lack of information. I knew a little bit about Altamont going into the film, but when it was over, I had a ton of questions that came up while watching, that were not addressed or explained clearly. The documentary is highly raw, meaning they don't have talking heads segments or infoboxes. So I had to go and do research and read about the show to get a better picture of what happened. I guess that if the worst part of a movie is that inspires me to read more about the subject, it's pretty good. But still, I feel like these things could have been easily addressed in the runtime of the movie.

There was some footage in the documentary shot before the concert, this is kind of the second part of the film. There is some footage included of the Stones' attorney, Melvin Belli, on speakerphone with the management of Altamont raceway, discussing how to make the concert happen. There's a significant amount of footage shown of fans arriving as well, it's early in the day, and people are laughing and having a good time. But it gets bad soon, as apparently there were a lot of drugs and laced wine going around, so people who weren't expecting to get high got super high. You see some people having bad trips here. We're also treated to some nudity, both of the male and female kind, throughout the show.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for your main event of the evening!"
Image by Paille via Wikipedia

The last third of the movie is the Altamont concert itself. The show kicks off with a kickass live version of "Six Days on the Road" performed by The Flying Burrito Brothers. This is about the only part of the concert they showed where people are having a good time, dancing, and the music is rocking. It wouldn't last. They soon segue into Jefferson Airplane. God. In further research into the concert, I learned that this incident was started when someone in the crowd knocked over a Hell's Angels motorcycle. Well, a fight breaks out in front of the stage. Marty Balin of the Airplane jumps off the stage to sort out the fight and gets knocked out by an Angel for his troubles. Rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner got on the mic to sarcastically thank the Angels for knocking out his singer. This prompts another Angel to grab a different mic and basically tell Kantner to shut up. Then Grace Slick gets on a mic and tells everyone to cool down and "keep your bodies off each other unless you intend love." We don't see any footage of Santana or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Reportedly though, Stephen Stills was stabbed in the leg multiple times by an Angel. That's not shown in the documentary, though. What IS shown is the Grateful Dead showing up, hearing about what happened to Balin, and then decided to peace out and leave. Jerry Garcia ended up being the most level-headed out of everyone. And him being the one who suggested the Hell's Angels in the first place!

Jerry Garcia: "Yeah, nope."
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

Now we come to the most infamous part of the film, concert, and the unofficial end of the hippie sixties. The Rolling Stones' set. The set ended up being a complete catastrophe. When they get to "Sympathy for the Devil" all hell starts to break loose. The Stones have to stop the set, multiple times, as fights break out in front of the stage. Jagger keeps trying to get on the mic and calm people down. But a few songs later, during "Under My Thumb," another fight breaks out. This time a black concertgoer, Meredith Hunter, gets stabbed to death to death by a Hell's Angel. And it's all, pretty clearly, caught on film. You can see Hunter throughout the show, wearing a green suit. The reasoning from the Angels was that Hunter had a gun and fired it off during the set. And I'll be honest, I couldn't tell from the footage alone if he had a gun and if he fired it off. The area he was at when the incident occurs isn't well lit. This is another thing that isn't really in the doc, but Hunter's sister, girlfriend, and friends did confirm he brought a gun to the show, later. At first, you might be asking yourself, why would he do such a thing. Well, remember, this was 1969, he's a black man, and the area where the concert took place (Livermore, California) was still fairly racist at the time. He brought it for self-defense. Now as to the gun firing, again, I don't know. No one can really tell for sure and once again, the footage isn't clean enough to know for sure. The Stones didn't realize until after the show that someone was killed. They continued playing, fearful that stopping would cause a full-scale riot, which honestly... after seeing this crowd in the film, it probably would have been worse if they had stopped.

There isn't much they show in the film, post-concert. You see people leaving the venue in the morning, while the mournful bellows of the song "Gimme Shelter" playing over it. At various points throughout the film, they show the reactions of Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger to different parts of the concert footage. Quite possibly the most powerful moment of the whole thing is seeing Jagger watch the stabbing, and the look on his face that screams "holy crap, what the hell did we do." There is also a bit shown the day after, with KSAN radio talking about the events that transpired, which is again interrupted by a Hells Angel. Sonny Barger (a famous enough Angel that he has his own Wikipedia page) calls into the station to explain "I ain't no cop, I ain't never going to ever pretend to be no cop. I didn't go there to police nothing, man. They told me if I could sit on the edge of the stage so nobody could climb over me, I could drink beer until the show was over. And that's what I went there to do." That should tell you everything you need to know.

Even today, in 2022, Sonny Barger is not someone I'd want to mess with. That's not a joke, that's a true fact.
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

Altamont has been described as a transition point between the end of the peace-loving, hippie, optimistic 1960s and the more cynical, depressing 1970s. Rolling Stone magazine famously wrote "rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong." Don McLean later wrote lyrics about the event in his song, "American Pie." "And as I watched him on the stage/My hands were clenched in fists of rage/No angel born in hell/Could break that Satan's spell."

At the end of the day, it's very easy to blame the Stones for what went wrong. They made all of the bad decisions that ended up in this disaster. But honestly, I gotta level blame at whoever let them make these decisions. Some person or group of people allowed the drug and alcohol-fueled Rolling Stones to make these calls. No one stepped in and said, "No, you aren't allowing the Hell's Angels to provide security." But that's sadly the way the world works. Money talks. And sadly, sometimes people lose their lives because of it.

Gimme Shelter opened to a very limited theatrical run on December 6th, 1970, one year to the day of Altamont. It ended up getting another, wider release 30 years later on August 11th, 2000. The domestic box office is $256,094, but box office numbers for a film like this are more difficult to categorize as good or bad. This is a documentary of the old school kind, it was designed to inform, not rake in ticket sales. The only other interesting piece of trivia I can really find is that George Lucas was one of the camera operators at Altamont. However, his camera jammed early, and nothing he shot was used in the movie.

The filmmakers, Albert and David Maysles, along with their co-director Charlotte Zwerin, would do more documentary work together and apart. Probably the most well-known thing the Maysles brothers did, other than Gimme Shelter, was probably 1975's Grey Gardens. That Lucas kid went on to have a moderately successful career, doing a movie about WWII fighter pilots and one about hot rods and muscle cars. Oh, and Captain EO.

Something tells me George will be okay in the end
Image by Prime Entertainment Group via IMDB

Gimme Shelter is presented in a different kind of way, from what you might normally expect. It comes from an era when documentaries were just raw footage. I mean, it's edited, but there are no voice-overs, no interviews, no infoboxes, nothing like that. It simply exists to just tell the story of what happened, in as much of an open and honest way as possible. And again, while I would have liked more information, it's refreshing to see the information presented in such a raw format. This is simply trying to tell a story, nothing more.

Now, I don't think flashy, stylistic documentaries are necessarily a bad thing. 1973's F for Fake, for instance, weaves a compelling story in a very creative manner. As does 2008's Man on Wire, which is one of my favorite films of all time. They all have music cues, talking heads, reenactments, and the whole nine yards. They are movies, attempting to tell a true story, in an entertaining fashion. But that's just it, they are MOVIES, and a lot of the "documentaries" produced over the last 20-25 years tend to take it too far.

I'm thinking of the 2020 Netflix "documentary" series, Tiger King. I watched the first episode and stopped because I knew how it was going to go. I knew that Joe Exotic would be presented as, if not a traditional "good guy," then as the outlandish and quirky owner of a tiger farm, who is so over the top that you can't help but love him and feel bad for him. I knew everyone watching would be convinced that Carole Baskin murdered her husband, without the documentary producing a single shred of evidence to support it. And I was right on both counts. I didn't anticipate that they would leave so much of Joe's bad behavior on the cutting room floor, though it doesn't surprise me. Let's ignore that he's a racist, animal abuser who sells tiger bones and that his tigers were fed horses that people donated to the farm. Oh, and he also once faked having cancer, which is ironic because he has cancer for real now. Joe Exotic is human garbage and Carole Baskin, while I won't say she's a saint, didn't kill her husband. 

But who cares! Journalistic integrity be damned! You got a second Netflix season, a more fictional Hulu drama, and Nicholas Cage wants to play Joe in a film. You can either die rich or die with integrity. I know what I'm choosing, $$$$$
Image by Netflix via IMDB

But that little rant aside, the difference between Tiger King and Gimme Shelter is that the Joe Exotic show (and many current documentaries flooding streaming media) aren't meant to educate. You're not supposed to learn anything from Tiger King or see how your world is shaped by these events. It's a story with cooky characters that is edited and crafted so as to entertain you. Harlan County, USA this is not. But Gimme Shelter, while not as traditionally "entertaining," is designed to inform you about what happens when excess leads to foolishness. It exists as a reminder for Meredith Hunter, who was murdered. The events of Altamont were not just one bad idea, but a series of them. And unfortunately, they lead to four people dead. 

Final Thoughts

I liked this movie. It was informative and powerful. The non-Altamont concert footage was great, some people live shots of the Stones about to enter their peak as performers. The Altamont footage is sad, disturbing, and real. There is a level of authenticity that you don't get with most documentaries. The only negative I can level at it is, again, the lack of contextual information regarding the events that led to this tragedy. If you go into this, not knowing anything about the concert, you will leave with many questions.

Gotta love the "what do I do with my arm" positions whilst making out
Image by Maysles Films via IMDB

This is all my opinion, of course. You should watch it and let me know what you thought, JustWatch will tell you where it's streaming. On a lighter conversation topic, what are your favorite Stones songs? Or are you more of a Beatles person? Or do you hate all music recorded pre-2018? Let me know in the comments!

Next time, it's back to the 90s. We're gonna do 1997's comedy For Richer or Poorer, staring two iconic 90s comedians, Tim Allen and Kristy Alley. Unless they restream Troll 3, in which case, expect some hot Contimation .7 action! See ya later, homies!