Anvil!

Very much like A Cross the Universe, this is a legitimate documentary about an existing band. In this case, the band is Anvil, a group that started in the early 1980s, alongside Whitesnake, Scorpions, Anthrax, and Metallica, just to name a few. 

They seemed quite promising when they debuted, and continued to succeed after recording a few albums of their own. However, their 15 days of fame came to a close quickly, as their management and production team (not to mention the record label they were on) collapsed due to financial troubles.

As the film starts out, it reveals that the singer of Anvil, who prefers using his stage name, Lips, works for a catering company in Toronto where both he and the original drummer, his best and closest friend, Robb Reiner, lives.

I know what you're thinking: Rob Reiner? Believe me, there's no resemblance or relation between the two. Plus, none of them own a shirt with a green x-ray of their skeletal structure. However, in their early days they were criticised on the content of their lyrics, which actually did suggest a sort of Spinal Tap quality to them, only more clandestine and clever.

I just want to make clear here that these recent two documentaries having to do with bands have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Where A Cross the Universe showed only the travel life of Justice, Anvil shows both the travel life with Anvil and their troubles at home, work, and their dreams to get a record label to accept them as artists and start recording again. 

Robb Reiner (Left) and Lips (Right) just hanging out in a bar.

What this documentary does best is to show both sides of everyone's point of view: Lips' universal optimism to his pent-up rage towards the music industry, Robb's calm personality and clear decisiveness to his almost leaving the band during a recording session, and their touring manager's open and caring personality to her incredibly scary and loud argumentative side. 

What this documentary is for is not only to tell he story of Anvil, but to tell other aspiring artists out there, rock band or no, that if you have a dream pursuing music and you have the means, go. Don't wait for anyone's approval, don't let cold feet stop you, don't look back from the path you have set before yourself. Both Lips and Reiner are both in their 50s in the film and are still trying to make things work. 

There's more to this film than meets the eye. Of course, it's a "rockumentary," but it's so much more than that. It's more or less a documented journey of a band, well in their 50s, to finally get the recognition they deserve. I believe this film accomplishes just that, as I plan to listen to Anvil's albums with fresh ears, with the knowledge of the struggles they went through just to record 13 songs, because I know they damn well deserve it.

Any musicians reading this review, I tell you now: 

Take what you have and use it for your future, if you have recordings, pieces written, even if you just have an idea and you've never written music before, save it. Do it. 

You'll learn all you need along the way.

If you care about numerical rating systems:

Ten anvils out of ten.

A Cross the Universe

Don't get the title confused, this isn't the Beatles musical film. This is the documentary of the electronic duo known as Justice. If you haven't heard of them, they're more like a hardcore sounding version of Daft Punk. If you haven't heard of them, then you wouldn't be reading this blog.

Onto the film, or rather documentary: it can be said (and it probably has) that this film doesn't function as a documentary in its traditional sense, but more like a journal that accompanies the band's journey across America. Perhaps it's important to mention here that Justice, or the members, rather, are very, very French. 

The two members names are Gaspard and Xavier and are (or were) touring across North America, starting at the east coast, driving through Canada, and down the west coast for the ending of their tour. These two, beside having almost no knowledge of the English language, are completely and totally awkward. A lot of the film is quite humorous, since in the beginning, Gaspard and Xavier are new to the US and Canada and do a lot of weird and funny things that we (and/or citizens) don't usually do in our own country, such as waiting for the driver to fix a blown tire by laying in the grass across the highway.

Gaspard from Justice (Center) relaxes after a show.

As the film progresses, the events become both harder and harder to believe, and also easier and easier to believe, but nonetheless progressively intensely crazier. Some of the events hinge on Gaspard and Xavier's bodyguard being obsessed with guns, acquiring one through the mail and carrying it with him wherever they go (which got him into trouble once). 

At one point he commented that, much like the way people wear bracelets, he decides to 'wear' his gun, which generally means him holding it in his hand at all times, just in case that when it comes down to it, it's right there and easy to use in a tricky situation.

Since the band is touring, some footage shows their performances in certain venues, but not for whole songs or concerts. Rather, footage of concerts only really exist in the film to both remind us that Gaspard and Xavier are musicians, and show us any interesting things that happen before, during or after performances. Normally for musicians (or how we think it is normally for them), it's the performances and concerts that contain the meat of their experiences, but as this film outlines, and possibly argues, it is the travelling itself that artists love to experience, whereas the performances are more or less monotonous to them. 

By focusing on the travelling aspect, we get to know the artist a lot better than just hearing them play. 

And in this case, in the case of Justice, you might not like what you find.

If you care about numerical rating systems:

Nine crosses out of ten.