Toronto: Buttercup on Neil Young's GREENDALE + Nomi Malone on GUNSHY!

Hey folks, Harry here... Buttercup is back with a review of Neil Young's GREENDALE... shot on super 8mm, a format you don't see people using too much these days... although I've always enjoyed the vibrant grainy quality of it. Sounds like an interesting musical experimental flick. Could be cool. Here ya go...

Hey Harry,  

Buttercup again.  My friend and I went to a screening of Greendale tonight.  It's a Neil Young project, directed under his alias, Bernard Shakey.  The movie is set in the town of Greendale and follows the lives of the Green family.  There's Grandma, Grandpa, their sons Earl and Jed, and Earl's daughter Sun.  A few possible spoilers might be in this review, but if you've heard the album or been to the concert, you already know what's coming.  There's no dialogue in the movie - it's all told through the music, so the lyrics act as dialogue.  It's sort of like an extended music video  The movie was shot in super 8, which made it feel almost too unpolished - super 8 blown up to big screen proportions isn't necessarily the easiest on the eyes.  My friend pointed out that there was a 70's home movie quality to it though, which does kind of tie in to the subject.  

The songs act almost like chapters in the film, with a break between each of the songs introducing the next section with the song number and title.  The film opens with the third song, Leave the Driving, then progresses backward to the second then the first song.  From there the rest of the film goes forward through songs 4-10.  Basically, we find out that Jed killed a policeman, Sun becomes an activist against injustice, and Earl is a struggling artist.  Grandma doesn't really show up much, and we don't find out much about Grandpa except that he appears to be the family cornerstone and can be pretty outspoken.  Oh, and the Devil shows up a couple of times to move the stories along.  Grandpa dies in part 7 ("Grandpa's Interview"), and I personally found this to be the climax of the film.  I think that ending after the 8th song ("Bringin' Down Dinner"), when Grandma returns with Grandpa's dinner (not knowing he died) and tells Sun she's ready to go out into the world by herself, would've made for a more satisfying ending.  But after part 8, the rest of the film continues by focusing on Sun and her activist exploits.  The latter part of the film feels different than the first part.  Where the beginning chronicles the lives of the Greens, the later part about Sun seems more purposeful, like we should be learning a meaning or a message from it - it doesn't really fit with the first part.  

Overall, Greendale was okay but I definitely thought it could've been shorter.  Background: I've liked the Neil Young songs that I've come across, but I'm not a die-hard fan by any stretch of the imagination.  This is my first exposure to Greendale and while watching it, I was thinking that I'd probably have a different opinion if I'd listened to the album first.  The music seems so story-driven that I'm not sure the album would've made sense to me on it's own.  However, my friend had gone to the Greendale concert before seeing the film, and he's a Neil Young fan, but he didn't like the concert and didn't think the movie was particularly good either.  Nothing in particular stood out during the Q&A either, although we did discover that Neil is a fan of Moulin Rouge.  Greendale is for a pretty specific audience.  Film-wise, I'm not sure there's really much to recommend it.  Neil Young-wise, if you're a fan, you probably already have your mind made up about it.

Buttercup

Next we have Nomi Malone talking briefly on a film called GUNSHY which sounds a bit intriguing from her review, even if she doesn't tell much and seemed disappointed. I'm curious to see it. Here ya go...