It Might Get Loud -- Guitar documentary

[DrFU]

This sounds cool, though out in limited release. Rottentomatoes.com gives it a 75%. Think I'll have to go see it when I'm in Austin later this week; no indie theaters here.

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Guitarists will rock you even if you don't go crazy for the ax
By John Anderson

SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST

Friday, September 11, 2009

"It Might Get Loud" has been given a PG rating, in part, for "smoking." Quite right. Jimmy Page, the Edge and Jack White, three of the more influential guitarists of several generations, start a little fire-by-fret during director Davis Guggenheim's film, which depicts wood, lacquer and hardware the way Hugh Hefner depicts Miss September. Guitar nuts will be turned on; everyone else will just have a good time.

The documentary was conceived by Thomas Tull (producer of "The Dark Knight," "Watchmen") as a tribute to the electric guitar, easily the most important musical development of the rock era, maybe even the 20th century. Les Paul's recent death and the increasingly hands-off quality of so much commercial music add a bit of poignancy to the movie. The principals here, however - the elegant Page, the modest Edge and the cocky White - are strictly hands-on in achieving a singular sound that is, amid the clangor of mainstream musical traffic, distinctive and personal.

What the three do is set out plainly enough, but the how and why don't come across quite as clearly: During one of the film's more revealing moments, the Edge plays a thunderous U2 riff and then demonstrates, after killing the effects and volume on his Gibson Explorer, the utter simplicity of what he's playing.

How did he get that Edge sound? Trade secret, apparently. Where each guitarist has arrived in seeking his trademark sound is clear enough; not so the route.

White explains quite bluntly the importance in rock of attitude, which he has in abundance and which translates into his music in the White Stripes and other projects. Page, whose storied past includes work as a top English session player before his years with the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin, shows himself to be an unlikely master of dynamics and nuance. As Guggenheim takes each player on a tour of Memory Lane, the Edge's recollections include some funny tales of Dublin, bad hair and the nascent days of what is now the No. 1 band in the world.

Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for "An Inconvenient Truth," makes all this guitar/guitarist worship both cinematic and delicious. One needn't have a Stratocaster moldering in the closet at home to get a kick out of "It Might Get Loud," a film full of personality and charm and a charisma level that's set at around 11.

Rating: PG for smoking, vulgarity. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. Theaters: Arbor, Dobie.

[Carla777]

sound great to me, i won't miss it..thanks for the info!