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pmetzger
Reviews
The Rawside of...: Die Mannequin (2008)
Rock'n'roll should not be this boring.
Watched the first half hour before switching to a rerun of Scrubs. Then I decided I'd review it, so I watched the rest to give it a fair shot.
Sure, self-pity and artificial pathos is the driving force behind some great punk music, but it's supposed to be off-set with excitement, anger, madness. There's lots of the former here, none of the latter that I could see.There's also no story to speak of - the filmmaker briefly tries to create some tension by playing up the lead singer/guitarist Care's writers block as she heads towards some indeterminate deadline but eventually loses interest, although not before the audience does.
There are lots of interview clips laden with barely post-teen angst, and there's also some old English guy who does a lot of the VO and quasi-narration. I should probably know who he is, but I can't be bothered to look.
Music behind the film leans too much towards folk-dirge style, with far too little audio/video of the band themselves. These guys cannot be as tiresome and cheerless as this. At least I hope not, and without hearing much of them I suspect they deserve better.