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rutebaga
Reviews
A Stoner's Life (2002)
Cute little short film.
Cute little short film about the self proclaimed worlds oldest pothead. He smokes day in and day out, seems to smoke quite a lot. I can only hope that my retirement will be as fun as his. I can only hope that I'll still be able to toke up when I'm that old...Viva la potheads!
24 Hour Party People (2002)
The story behind Factory records, New Order, Joy Division and the Happy Mondays.
Great movie about some bands that I loved growing up. I remember in Junior High when a friend of mine gave me the Happy Mondays' Thrills, Pills and Bellyaches to check out. I loved it and made a tape of it that I still have today, although it is a bit beaten up. The Happy Mondays, Joy Division and New Order were both great bands and this movie shows a little bit about their starts and downfalls as told by Tony Wilson. The movie also touches on the beginnings of the rave scene in Manchester and the part that the Happy Mondays had in its birth there. The Hacienda, the venue where Factory Records held its events saw the rise of these bands and the rise of electronic dance music. This helps tie together my musical tastes now and what influenced that. I spent my formative years, Junior High and High School listening to bands like the Happy Mondays and the Fall, New Order and Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Sex Pistols, and it somehow all fits that today I have become immersed in the rave culture and into electronic dance music, I can see a bit more clearly how my musical tastes then influenced what I listen to today. This film is well done, told from Tony's perspective, looking back on it all. It is a tale of the rise and fall of Factory Records, where in the end, drugs and lack of any real business plan led the label to its end. When Sean Ryder succumbed to heroin addiction and then to using crack, the Happy Mondays were unable to produce another album to keep the label alive. And since they had no real contracts with their artists, the artists controlled all rights to their music, so the label was unable to sell out when the time came to do so. Quite a tale of sex, drugs and rock and roll...