Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Shut Up And Watch This Movie


Monday night we saw Shut Up And Play The Hits, the documentary covering LCD Soundsystem's last show in Madison Square Garden. And let me tell you, now I really regret missing that show. I didn't go because my memory of them playing Metro on the This Is Happening tour was so 100% perfect and awesome and I didn't want to risk marring it with what could have been a bloated overdone send-off. Instead what I missed was an incredibly emotional, 100% cathartic, once in a lifetime send-off. So I'm dumb.

The movie's done by the same team that did Blur's No Distance Left To Run doc and their M.O. is basically the same here; intersperse video of the run-up (and in this case aftermath) of the show amongst concert footage. It's a pretty standard approach but Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace have an incredible eye for capturing rare moments of both explosive and quiet intensity. My favorite shot in the entire film of a couple you can only see in silhouette clearly losing their mind and dancing with rapture. When you see them you see the deep and irresistible power LCD Soundsystem's music can have on people.

At the moment it's only screening occasionally in theaters but if it plays anywhere near you then I HIGHLY recommend seeing it on a big screen with a LOUD sound system. And I think theaters should be fully endorsing people to dance in the aisles during the musical numbers. It took all my effort to stay in my seat!

The DVD is out on October 9.

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