Too Much Too Soon
October 29th, 2005This is fantastic! I had no idea that one of the surviving New York Dolls is a Mormon! And that somebody made a documentary? And that I actually know the director?
The director was Heather’s home teacher in L.A. (and mine by default after I moved in). He invited us to a Groundlings writing workshop performance that was hilarious and to this day, we still quote stuff from those sketches.
It opened last night in NYC and LA (I believe this is where elevator incident occurred) and is making the rounds throughout the west.
IMDB link.
You can watch the first eight minutes of the documentary at ifilm (Link goes directly to profile page).
Rotten Tomato reviews here.
Metacritic reviews here.
Congrats on all the great reviews, Greg! o
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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 29th, 2005 at 12:38 am and is filed under culture, heather, link, los angeles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
October 29th, 2005 at 6:06 am
I love that you can link to memories. Leta is going to know her parents so well. Do you ever refer to your blogs to resolve arguments? I think it is wonderful, I wish I had your talent.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:33 am
i really enjoyed the link to the 8 minutes, thanks. hopefully it won’t take too long to get to the north bay.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:38 am
For what ever reason my IE will NOT open the link to the 8 minute preview. Duh.
I’d still like to see the movie though. Sounds like it would be great.
October 29th, 2005 at 11:10 am
The lipstick thingie on that site is flippin cool. (It takes so little to amuse me.) Thanks for mentioning this documentary!
October 29th, 2005 at 12:22 pm
I would hardly call Killer Kane a “surviving” NY Doll. He died last year.
Apparently his widow is pissed at the Mormon Church because they cremated his body before she had a chance to put him in his final resting place next to Johnny Thunders and another of the Dolls in NY.
Also, the Village Voice SLAMMED the documentary, saying it’s less about a legendary rock n roll than about a Mormon. Really rough stuff. Here’s the link: http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0543,fxgau,69413,20.html
October 29th, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Wow, the movie got exceptionally good reviews. The New York Times is difficult to impress, yet they got a good rating nonetheless. A 90% on Rotten Tomatoes is also excellent.
October 29th, 2005 at 3:40 pm
ha! i loved reading about the elevator incident again. isn’t giovanni’s sister married to beck? that’s about all i know about him. except he is good at playing mentally challenged people with juliette lewis.
October 29th, 2005 at 4:46 pm
Thursday night at 7pm, the movie will be shown at the Tower Theater in Salt Lake City as part of a live broadcast of local NPR show “Radio West.” KUER’s home page (kuer.org) says Greg Whitely and others will “join” them, but I don’t know if that means in person or over the phone.
Just an FYI.
October 30th, 2005 at 12:39 am
Oh sure, NOW you claim having Mormon ties when it’s cool;)
Dale Cruse: Yeah, I read about his wife as well. Probably the worst piece of journalism I have ever read. Just to clear the air: the Church does not claim bodies of it’s members. My guess is that some friend of Killer’s who happend to be Mormon cremated him or handled his estate. Why wasn’t his wife around when he died anyway? Also, in the 8 minute film clip Killer talks about how he is single…I dunno…I don’t think that we’re getting the whole story.
By the way, this showed at Sundance and had it not been for other plans we were going to see it.
October 30th, 2005 at 7:53 am
yeah, I thought of you when I heard about it on KCRW…
October 30th, 2005 at 8:59 am
I love the lipstick cursor. That is all.
October 30th, 2005 at 10:18 am
Thanks for the tip. It was great!
The early footage of The Dolls was gorgeous and the late interviews of Arthur were a perfect foil in their quiet tension. The film was beautifully edited and there are some great hand drawn diagrams attempting to explain The Dolls place in the pantheon of rock that reminded me a bit of the beautiful maps in Peter Greenawayís ìA Walk Through H.î Your friend did an interesting Q & A afterward.
My only criticism is that I wish the director would have explored the tension between perceptions of what it means to be a Mormon and what it means to be a Rock Star more. It is obvious that Arthurís two worlds were in conflict (androgyny vs. strict gender roles, questions vs. answers) but the film pretty much avoided that.
The documentary ìMayor of the Sunset Stripî about Rodney Bingenheimerís similarly anticlimactic career allows itself to reflect a little more on darker implications.
The cake topper is that one of the previews was for Giovanni Ribisiís new movie.
(p.s. The subject of his burial was mentioned in the q & a but not answered at all. It was the only thing he seemed uncomfortable talking about.)
October 30th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
Dale Cruse - While I wouldn’t exactly characterize that Village Voice piece as having “slammed” the movie, the review is a great example of the Voice’s irritatingly adolescent too-cool-for-school style. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
October 30th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
Hey Jon,
The show is opening in SLC this Thursday at the Tower.
T.
October 31st, 2005 at 8:56 am
You could fill the whole page with ads and have the content be one small column to the side and I would still visit the site. I go because I love the writing, because I feel like I’m visiting a friend and because I’m insanely jealous that you guys get to stay home with Leta and still make it work. I have no idea what goes into writing a blog or making it pay the bills, but I do know I enjoy your and Heather’s writing, so as long as you keep adding new content, I will keep visiting.
October 31st, 2005 at 11:39 am
Patatomic, thanks for those links early (I didn’t click them, but I need to give you ups for sending them).
Village Voice piece was snoooooooty. Not because it slammed the film, but the hipper than thou tone is why I don’t read their criticism much any more.
Dale, thanks for the spoiler! I was trying to avoid that.