Stand By for Failure: A Documentary About Negativland

ryemyles5.0

I made this movie, I like it! Thanks for watching!

BrianKish5.0

Alright, I'll make my first Letterboxd review for this movie. I saw this at Nitehawk Cinema in Williamsburg last night on Valentine's Day with a small crowd, and the film had a Q&A with the filmmaker Ryan Worsley and founding band members Mark Hosler and David "The Weatherman" Wills. I took my date to see this, who was previously uninitiated and she really liked it, particularly tickled by The Weatherman (what other reaction is there? The guy's a legend.)I heard Negativland at the exact right time: in high school when you're at an age that's not totally overcome with cynicism and thinking you've heard and seen it all. I happened upon some generic mix CD of "Great Dance Songs" or something of the like. The track title "Christianity is Stupid" seemed amiss, so I had to investigate. I was totally taken aback, not knowing exactly what I was hearing or the intent, but it drove me to hear more. The U2 single followed, which drove me into a fit of laughter and my music taste would never be the same. It's not an exaggeration to say that Negativland changed the way I perceive the world around me. Suddenly, everything else didn't seem as daring, interesting, or above all, funny as they way they presented everything. This ran from dark, lofty concepts, to benign, banal topics. It's a totally different listening experience than most other groups.As for the documentary - it's great! The only setback is that the movie's greatest strength is also a bit of a weakness: the sheer inundation of sound and images and cut-up collage technique so often present in their work is the only way to present their story, but is potentially overload at 90 or so minutes. I found this to be true of "Sonic Outlaws", though much less so here. While that one kept jumping from topic to topic and artist to artist, this at least gives you a lot to consider and ponder. And as the director said, the narrative is mostly based upon what footage already existed and what The Weatherman and others chose to document. That means we get some neat concert footage, excerpts from news broadcasts, stuff from "No Other Possibility", footage of cats walking around, everything all at once. I thought it was particularly cool to see some footage of the band pressing the first album, doing their Over The Edge show, and of course the scene where The Weatherman forces Don Joyce to take his boots off before entering his house and painstakingly washing them, which leads to more bickering. Amazing. It's hard to cover every album (I wish there was some stuff about Dispepsi in here.) But it really does walk a nice line between being a fitting introduction to newcomers and splicing in lots of footage that's likely not been seen before (not unlike that Residents documentary from a few years back.) I was laughing throughout, and was genuinely sad when the wave of original members dying off inevitably came. All these years later, Negativland is in my top 5...3? favorite bands and that's unlikely to ever change. They somehow sound like no one else. They make lofty, heady commentary. They manage to try something different and keep up with technology and current events. But most importantly, they always keep it sincere and funny. I'll be listening to their albums and radio shows for many, many years to come and will keep discovering new details and tidbits (a la Firesign Theatre.)In short, this is a great introduction to a landmark band. It's very, very difficult to describe what the band does, even in 90 minutes, but this is as concise as it's ever going to get. Fans of fringe music and media take note!If you're so inclined, I have a very modest YouTube channel which I post reviews to from time to time:www.youtube.com/channel/UChvAe7p_mEedh3DOtxRDM8w

slothtroyer5.0

A 5 star reminder that there is so much to do in this life, so much good work to be done, so many things to be made and shared, so many amazing people all around you to do it all with ((meet them, love them make something with them before its too late)) fight the good fight or better yet dont fight (or at least dont hurt anyone), create your own world...Enhanced of course by seeing this at a Negativland event with my "local noise community," bestfriends, bandmates, and collaborators. The surviving members of this trailblazing (to say the least) band performed after the showing and even had the almighty recluse weirdo The Weatherman skype in and bless us all with his magic silliness...In this era where subcultures splinter everywhere and comic book movies make billions it can be hard to remember what a real nerd is...Negativland were real nerds, the best kind, unpretentious, driven, passionate culture exploders, ready to make the things they thought were stupid and wrong headed sit on whoopie cushions coming from a place that was just as much cutting edge tech, and John Cage minded, as they were coming from joke shop, mad magazine anarchy. Come on. Lighten up laugh a little...who could take such a dark, weird world so seriously...www.youtube.com/watch?v=82fshB1F_tE