Sparks: classic or dud?

Edgar Wright, folks! (Then again, the Maels are utter film nerds...)

In terms of the exhaustiveness, I kinda get it but at the same time it was intentionally central as a point of argument about their existence/persistence; it was meant to be a implied rebuke to 'whatever happened to' attitudes as much as addressing general 'who even are they?' responses: they're still busy, doing work, playing out, etc. This is its own tangle since you've got any number of acts or musicians who steadily release albums that are regularly overshadowed by their pasts -- there was a great subthread on Neil Young on Twitter talking about how pretty much the last twenty years plus is nothing but albums nobody remembers or cares about -- but it also aimed to make the case about how certain albums and phases found them being actual hitmakers again through the decades, and where.

Yeah, on the other Sparks thread we were complaining that it's too short :)

the former drummer breaking into tears was...something

That whole period of the band remains a bit sad and mysterious. Clips of their songs from the Mai project were played on a BBC radio documentary on them from the late 2000s IIRC, and I keep wondering what if anything will resurface. There is a small elision, though; they released the standalone "National Crime Awareness Week" single in 1993, Simon Price interviewed them for Melody Maker that fall, I've still got the issue somewhere, etc.

I saw it last night and liked it! A lot of the archive footage they used in the film you can find on YouTube pretty easily.

i didn't mind the stylistic stuff despite it being kind of corny, and i had fun watching the movie. but it really was too long. every rockumentary struggles with how to strike the balance between explaining stuff to noobs and satisfying the nerds. sparks brothers failed at this but in a way that most movies don't. the focus on almost every single album felt like it was for the "real fans" but you didn't really get much info about each one; and like kurt said you still don't really get much live footage or even significant clips of songs. overall it was way too exhaustive for neophytes or even casual fans, and while it's nice to have something for the obsessive fans for a change, they aren't truly going to be satisfied unless they get like a 12-hour miniseries.

god bless russell but he comes across as oddly personality-less in this.

they aren't truly going to be satisfied unless they get like a 12-hour miniseries.

What a fine idea!

45 minutes of Ron discussing how he chose the slap-bass samples on Interior Design.

OMG, why would any film maker do this in 2021?

As also discussed on the other thread, the film uses the Maels' lifelong interest in film as a throughline: born and growing up in Los Angeles, I think there's fleeting 8mm footage of Hollywood High School?, their interest in visual staging right back to Halfnelson auditioning for Rundgren by putting on a private show with props and sets, attending film school and including snippets of Russell's mock French art film starring another Halfnelson member, the disappointment of their Tati collaboration not getting up in the '70s, wasting six years working seven days a week on the Mai musical (the condensed/rushed nature of the film means that Burton is the only director attached - Hark doesn't even get mentioned for the song they did with him) instead of Sparks, a tiny glimpse of a semi-staged reading of The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman at the LA Film Festival, up to (the last footage shot for the film) on-set glimpses of the Maels, Driver, Cotillard and Carax making Annette. The odd second-and-a-half of old film footage is used as punctuation and to maintain that theme, not as CUT TO with sound or descriptive voiceover.

Yeah, on the other Sparks thread we were complaining that it's too short :)

seems Chaki agrees with this too tbh:

only showed live footage for a fraction of a song

What sic said

I would argue that going in chronological order through every album to the point of exhaustion “and then this album happened, and then this album happened.” and having Patton Oswald or someone I don’t care about say “this is a good album” then moving on to the next one is completely counter to what the Mael’s body of work is about. Remember when Ron talked about how he would walk into the middle of a movie and imagine the beginning and how that spoke to his artist narrative? Yah this movie is the opposite of that.

No, the struggle-struggle-HIT!-flop-struggle-struggle-HIT!!-flop-struggle never-give-up "artist narrative" is crucial to the film. Only focussing on their high points would have misrepresented the individualism of the brothers as a unit and the variety of their career as creators.

then moving on to the next one

Good to see you agreeing that this happens too quickly and the film should be longer :)

I’m not saying only hit the high points just do ANYTHING other than chronological order, 30% farmed out inconsistent animation filler, cheap stock footage, then a ton of pointless talking heads saying the same thing over and over. (Scott Auckerman? Really?) it’s the same bullshit every music doc succumbs to. It’s lazy and boring and exudes none of the joy or creativity that Sparks’ music creates.

There’s literally a scene of Neil Gaiman holding up an album saying “here’s me holding up the album so you can pan to a celeb holding up an album.” Which is so pointless ugh kill me.

There’s literally a scene of Neil Gaiman holding up an album saying “here’s me holding up the album so you can pan to a celeb holding up an album.” Which is so pointless ugh kill me.

Clearly Carax should have directed this and Wright directed Annette uh wait

I'll see this sooner or later, but these descriptions sound terrible.

I'm excited for Annette! It probably wont be terrible!

This movie rocked, sorry

I actually liked the scope that took all of their albums into consideration because, well, that's how nerds look at albums. Like, yeah, it could have been a tight 90 minute story, and probably would need to be if it was some Netflix crap or whatever, but it told the story **and** gave all 25 or whatever albums a watchful eye. However, yes, the last 20 minutes of "In conclusion, Sparks is good" was p unecessary.

And yeah, Scott Aukerman and Neil Gaiman and that rando podcast woman are all super cringe, but idk, Sparks attracts a lot of cringe Onion A/V TMBG people so dealwithit.gif

idk, man, after like 10 years of every marginal band getting a shitty crowdfunded Kickstarter documentary it was nice to see something that worked on that nerd level with some style and professionalism

Gaiman holds up the album in order to turn it, showing both sides, and then talks through the story he inferred as a teenager from the three different images on the front, back and gatefold. Edgar then suggests an alternative narrative that can be constructed from those three staged visuals, and Gaiman notes that as a director, Wright made a more coherent story in a split second from the disconnected images than Gaiman had in 45 years. It's another part of the running throughline of Sparks always being concerned with visual storytelling as a major aspect of their output, and the one about how fans are intentionally left to construct their own ideas of what the brothers are about, given their personal privacy.

(It also takes up about twelve seconds of the movie, for people who are being put off by Chaki's nitpicking, or the very idea of a documentary having themes.)

((Aukerman speaks maybe seven words in two hours 15 mins, if anyone's fearing cringing))

i believe you are mistaken and someone else walks through the propaganda imagery! gaiman just holds up indiscreet iirc.

but maybe im the mistaken one!

Fyi I interviewed EW (and the boys) about the doc (the feature is in the super soaraway issue of Uncut mag on your newsstands now) and the original cut, which he showed to Cameron Crowe, was 4 hours long...

can anyone speak to the the reasoning behind putting it in multiplexes nationally (i think its on 500 screen?!) seems likea risky move

Doesn't look like anything else was new that week but The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2021W25/?ref_=bo_wey_table_1

Edgar Wright’s ‘The Sparks Brothers’ Lights Up Specialty Box Office Amid Full Theater Reopenings In LA, NY

The Sparks Brothers grossed $265K this Father’s Day weekend on 534 screens ($489 per screen average), huge numbers for any documentary debut these days.

The strongest performing markets for the pop-rock doc were Los Angeles (with 18% of the gross in 48 theaters), New York, San Francisco, Austin and Chicago.

the original cut, which he showed to Cameron Crowe, was 4 hours long

I protest. He should have showed that to me.

And yeah it was actually a bit of a slick move since they had that week to themselves, nearly, just before F9 hits.

kurts did u see this at the Alamo

i saw it at century city mall where ronald is often spotted irl lol

I'm psyched for Annette because I'm coming at it from the Carax-fan's side and Holy Motors was awesomer-than-awesome.
From your reviews - thank you all! - I don't know if I'll be searching this doc (maybe I will right because I don't know much about Sparks), but it sounds like it's got some of the same problems I had with the recent XTC doc - too short, several eras undermentioned etc.

I was wondering how much talking head stuff there would be cause in the trailer they literally say “we didn’t want to make a typical doc w a bunch of random talking heads” even tho the trailer itself had plenty of random talking heads saying some quite ridiculous & hyperbolic shit like “every significant pop trend can be traced back to sparks”

Holy Motors is one of my favourite movies of the last however long and Baby Driver was the dampest of squibs. Had brief FOMO over missing the doc at the pictures (I think?) but nah, it's assuaged for now.

the point of including that hyperbole in the film is that the bloke saying "all pop music is rearranged Vince Clarke or rearranged Sparks" has his caption panickedly shuffling during the seconds that he's saying it, rushing to try and cover that he has written and arranged and played and produced pop music for Lorde and Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey and The Chicks and etc

I echo sic this was great and Ron and Russell get most of the speaking time (I speak as a fan but not someone who has worn out the grooves on all the albums and a huge emotional investment).

Has there ever been one of these music documentaries where a celebrity/expert appears to say they DON'T like the artist? Closest I can think of is Mick Jagger in the Rodney Bingenheimer movie.

Marc almond in the Scott Walker one saying he thought tilt was shit

Loved the doc and the way it was structured made a lot of sense to me. A big part of the Sparks story is staying fully committed over many decades to this idea they had, and I think it made sense to present it album-by-album to really bring that out. It's touching, too, even though they probably didn't want it to be that way. At one point one of their band members talked about how respectful the Maels are to everyone on tour, Ron is shown giving that speech on stage about how they "don't take any of this for granted" etc. I was moved. The music business is full of assholes and that type of behaviour is often fodder for documentaries like this, so it was nice to see the flipside of that for a change. I love Ron's absolute commitment to his image, ghosting around LA looking like a beatnik spy in his mid 70s. Fantastic.

Rundgren summed it up really well near the end by saying something like: "It's heartening that something this weird stayed this weird for so long and wasn't dampened down into something less weird."

It's notable as well that the few business types in the film seem to be good eggs. Gary Stewart's good spirit was attested to by everyone then and especially after his tragic death, and Muff Winwood, admittedly also a producer, seems like he'd be a character to hang with and hear stories from.

Do the Maels or their fans in the film admit that any of the records were sub-standard?

for sure

Yeah, some in more detail than others. There's definitely ones where they essentially shrug a bit.

Meantime, on another tip, new Annette song out

“WE LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH” — the 2nd single release from the Sparks-penned movie musical #ANNETTE is out now!

Vocals by Adam Driver & Marion Cotillard. ✨

Listen now: https://t.co/PkHVRx1BrZ pic.twitter.com/8bVpiKMTLG

— SPARKS (@sparksofficial) June 25, 2021

Has there ever been one of these music documentaries where a celebrity/expert appears to say they DON'T like the artist? Closest I can think of is Mick Jagger in the Rodney Bingenheimer movie.

It's a mockumentary, but this reminds me of Paul Simon ("Did they influence you?" "No.") and Jagger ("...they were more of a Keith thing...") in The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash.

Read a rock bio by Canadian micro-celebrity Grant Lawrence, about his times as lead singer of the Smugglers and it truly seems like he didn't really like his own band and didn't think they were very good musically. It was depressing.

Metal docs are usually pretty good if you're looking for anti-good feeling. There's usually no shortage of commentators looking to pile in on Poison and the like.

I saw 2/3rds of the doc, which was fun, but the fact that I needed a break is kind of in line with why I've never been a big Sparks fan.

U fiend