Some Kind of Monster

Finally, after way too long, I got around to seeing the Metallica documentary, Some Kind of Monster. Metal Thrashing Mad is this a brilliant and satisfying film. The DVD spread over two disks took me two nights of viewing. I wouldn’t let myself go to bed last night until I had watched every deleted scene, out-take, Sundance Film Festival Q&A – everything! I don’t think I’ve ever gone that hog wild with the DVD format before. Honestly tho, if they had included fourteen more discs of unused footage then I would still be happily sitting in front of my television.

For anybody on the fence on this film, even if you are not a fan of the METAL, get off it and go rent this. It’s an amazing window into the complex human drama of the creative process itself. Make sure you watch the bonus disk as you get to see the scene where Lars Ulrich goes back to his home town in Denmark. His childhood house, where his father would hang out with Coltrane and Miles Davis, is a site to see. The film is made by the makers of Brothers Keeper, which I had rented last week and is a great movie as well. I hadn’t made the connection they were also involved in Some Kind of Monster until I rented it.

Also, hats off to Metallica for picking up totemic bass giant Rob Trujillo from Suicidal Tendencies to round out their new team. That kind of musical trade makes the A-Rod Yankees deal seem like childs play.

As a side note, when Metallica’s last record St. Anger came out, I remembered that, much to the chagrin of the band I’m sure, I downloaded some of the songs off it. And I was pretty disappointed. But after watching the documentary, I realized that most of the songs I had downloaded were not even Metallica songs at all but some kind of impostor mp3’s that Metallica had used to throw people off their scent. Very tricky you guys. Me thinks you might want to rethink this strategy as I’m sure there were other fans out there who simply wanted to hear what the album sounded like before they dropped the cash on the whole package. Unfortunately what they heard did not convince them to do so.