Sundance Online Review Thread

[impackt]

http://www.cinematical.com/2006/01/21/sundance-review-awesome-i-fuckin-shot-that/

Sundance Review: Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!
Posted Jan 21st 2006 6:28PM by James Rocchi


I guess the highest compliment you can pay Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! – a concert film made by distributing 50 cameras to fans at a Madison Square Gardens Beastie Boys show and aggregating the footage – is that when I walked out of the packed Sundance Film Festival press screening at the Holiday theaters, I was amazed my clothes didn't smell like weed and spilled beer.

And yeah, that is a compliment; as concert films become mass-produced for the DVD and cable channel markets, they grow more and more similar as they roll off the assembly line. With Awesome; … , The Beastie Boys are, at least, trying something new (even if I seem to recall a Bon Jovi video with the same methodology in my hazy MTV memories …). Directed by "Nathanial Hörnblowér" (also known as Beastie Adam Yauch), Awesome; … isn't just an experiment in collective creativity or a easy gimmick; Awesome; ... comes closer to recreating the concert experience than 99.9 percent of its peers in the field. That doesn't come from how well it captures the performance – a lot of the footage is grainy or distant or shaky, and a lot of the film is covered up by video effects – but rather in how well it captures the entire concert experience – beer runs, trips to the bathroom, arguing with security about whether or not you can, in fact, be allowed backstage. The film's mix of images starts as stunning and then goes over the top; every time you get used to the barrage, it kicks up another notch or drops another visual beat into the mix.

But the Beastie Boys have always loved collage – more, in fact, than their role as hip-hoppers and rappers would already suggest. (If collage/deconstruction/sampling/re-mixing is the dominant artistic theme of modern pop culture – and some would suggest it is – then hip-hop is, then, the artform that embodies that idea.) The Beasties have always mixed and matched their obsessions, dropping references to action director John Woo, underground cartoonist Vaughan Bode, baseball icon Rod Carew and '70s action flick The Taking of Pelham One Two Three … all in one song, in fact. Awesome; … starts in similar fashion: The 'i's' in the ThinkFilm logo are dotted with xylophone hits from the single 'Girls," the Oscilloscope Laboratories production logo is styled like a '60s Cinemascope logo, and the film kicks off with the title crawl from an '80s trash-cinema masterpiece recreated verbatim. And then, you get to the good stuff. And it's all good stuff.

MCA, Mike D and Adam Yauch have gone from being rap's enfants terrible to eminences grise (literally), and it's not just Gen-X nostalgia, or how they brought rap to the White suburbs (if that were the case, Vanilla Ice and Snow would still be recording – which, thank God, they aren't.) The songs are great; the longtime anchoring support of DJ Mixmaster Mike and keyboardist Mark "Money Mark" Ramos-Nishita elevates the troupe even higher as somgsmiths and performers. And the fact of the matter is that if enthusiasm and joy are contagious – which they are – then The Beastie Boys are having a hell of a time and it shows; check out how when it's time for the full band set, a lit-up Gazebo emerges with the entire band in retro-tragic Prom wear, or how the band definitively tackles the question of how to inject life into the tired ritual of the encore.

And again, it's a fun show. Awesome; … captures the illusion central to concert going; that you're part of a huge crowd but having an individual experience with the people you're watching. (Really, a rock concert is just like a Vatican mass, but with deeper base.) And that's here: From the sing-along jocks in backwards baseball caps, to the boys and girls dancing on chairs to the concessionaire liberated from her polyester shirt, nametag and visor for a second as she air-guitars the kickin' riff to "Sabotage" in a moment of transcendence as pure as it is simple – Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! is an pure piece of pop/punk/funk/hip-hop moviemaking that manages to capture something wonderful while bringng it back alive.

[dave790]

Quality review (y)

Good thread idea too, although it might end up in Beasties Press I'd rather see it stay here.

[YoungRemy]

I just saw the movie poster for AIFST on Festival Dailies Day 2...


Day 3 is tonight at 9...

[gaselite]

BAM! http://www.filmthreat.com/index.php?section=reviews&Id=8389

Sounds really really good eh?


“….i apologize for the title of the film. I hate the devil as much as anyone. I am a good god fearing soul, and have only called the film this way to tempt him to come out, so that I may slay him down right in front of you.” – Nathanial Hornblower



For a band that started out as a hardcore act before moving into silly hip-hop party songs, they certainly know how to evolve. Lately the Beastie Boys have been politically active and aware, especially with their last album, To The 5 Burroughs. They reinvented the band DVD compilation in 2000, with the Criterion release of their finest music videos. It had so many cool extra features (multiple angles, commentaries, different audio tracks, etc.), no band DVD has ever come close to competing since. And just like they reinvented the DVD, “Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!” reinvents the concert film like no other before it.




The Beastie Boys passed out 50 cameras to 50 different concertgoers at their October 9th, 2004, sold-out performance at New York’s notorious Madison Square Garden. The cameras handed around were simple hi-8 cameras, which aren’t particularly known for their brilliant video quality and it looks exactly how you are picturing it to look, too. This film wasn’t made to look glamorous like countless concert films before it. Those elements help “Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!” succeed. Since all of the cameramen and women were nothing but amateurs, don’t come in here expecting Malick style cinematography. Stylistically, this film is like the “Blair Witch” of concert films.




There are a lot of shaky shots, unnecessary zooms and unfocused imagery all throughout this film. Those with epileptic tendencies that have had to stay away from Tony Scott films may want to stay away from this one too. Their ferocious performance mixed with this choppy footage brilliantly adds to the feel of the actual concert going experience without the costly tickets, bad seats, claustrophobic atmosphere and sweaty bodies rubbing against you. To the die-hard Beastie Boys connoisseur, this is their love letter to you. This style will no doubt turn off some audience members; this was shot exclusively by fans and for fans.




Hornblower also adds some digital effects to the footage too. He fuses different color schemes and patterns to go along with the music to keep it from going stale. The editing also deserves a mention, as it rarely stays with one camera. They even chose to show some of the camera crew getting beers at the concession, going to the bathroom, and even one guy trying to make his way backstage. Rarely before has a concert taped for theater and home viewing ever been quite as interesting.




Just thinking about the editing process of this film is exhausting, let alone all the hard work that went into it. Watching the same concert from 50 different points of view is a pretty brutal task, so it should be exciting when the DVD for “Awesome; I Fucking Shot That!” is released. There is no limit to the various angles this concert could be shown in, flawlessly utilizing a DVD function rarely used.




The Beastie Boys have delivered the ultimate gift to their fans and the title couldn’t be more perfect. “Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!” is exactly that… it’s fuckin’ awesome!

[Laver1969]

It looks like the press reviews are AWESOME as well.

[razmatazern]

this is from http://www.eye.net/blog/?p=322
The next time I will be in a room with famous people, the actual room will be even stranger. In a giant orange tent emblazoned with Burton posters and logos at the base of the Park City Mountain Resort, the Beastie Boys hold court before the press. Outside their track suits, they look like venture capitalists in their mid-40s, but that’s okay because they’re still the Beastie Boys. What’s more, their new concert movie, Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That (“What will the Moviefone guy say?” ponders Mike D., rhetorically), is fantastic. Shot by 50 fans with cheap consumer cameras from various vantages in Madison Square Garden in a show from October of 2004, it’s a wildly experimental and mostly successful deconstruction-cum-demolition of concert movie-isms. The director credited with the masterstroke is Nathanial Hornblower, who’s really the graying but rather-more-handsome-now-than-when-he-was-singing-about-titties Adam “Ad Rock” Yauch. “Was the sub bumping in the theatre?” he asks the press. “Good. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t get gypped.” Every so often I lose track of what they’re saying because some snowboarder is yammering a few inches away, beyond the boundary of orange nylon. Everyone feels very cool just being here.


that bolded part made me laugh out loud...then it made me want to throw up :confused:

[YoungRemy]

It looks like the press reviews are AWESOME as well.

there is a lot of great buzz about this AIFST, everyone in Utah is talking about it.

[Bionic]

meh.


hi dave790

[dave790]

2 posts above man, cheers anyway (y)

[adrock14]

cool article. (y)

[Kid Presentable]

These reviews are cool.

[3MTA3]

http://festival.sundance.org/filmguide/popup.aspx?film=9933

[midzi]

They're with the band
The Beastie Boys gave fans video cameras for a concert film unlike any other

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1137970209783&call_pageid=991479973472&col=991929131147

Documentary Awesome; I F—kin' Shot That! is raw, rough, occasionally raunchy
Jan. 23, 2006. 01:00 AM
PETER HOWELL


PARK CITY, Utah—Pop iconoclasts to the core, the Beastie Boys weren't going to have just any old press conference at the Sundance Film Festival.

A Saturday afternoon invitation to talk to Adam Yauch (MCA), Adam Horovitz (Adrock) and Michael Diamond (Mike D) about their mind-blowing new concert film Awesome: I F—kin' Shot That! took the form of a mini-scavenger hunt.

Journalists were told to look for "Burton Lounge," located "near the First-Time Chair Lift" at the Park City Mountain Resort.

Except there is no Burton Lounge at the resort, and even the first-aid workers next to the chair lift weren't sure what the invitation meant. They pointed to an inflatable red igloo at the base of the hill with "Burton" marked on the side, situated between dive-bombing skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers. Could that be it?

Sure enough, it was. But the unheated igloo could barely hold 50 shivering journalists and technicians — the lucky ones who managed to find it in the first place.

"It's a little chilly in here, I think," Diamond said, smiling mischievously. No kidding, but the band members all had individual votive light candles in front of them to warm their hands.

The Beasties, as usual, were messing with our heads. This is a band of white Jewish New Yorkers who managed to outrage both rappers and punkers when they first appeared on the scene at the dawn of the 1980s. They didn't look or act like rappers, or even punkers for that matter, but they could slice-and-dice the two genres like samurai swordsmen.

They changed attitudes with their first album License to Ill in 1986, the first rap album to hit No. 1 on the charts. They've been breaking new ground and setting sales records ever since, hitting No. 1 once more with their more recent album, To The 5 Boroughs. The Beastie Boys were also one of the first major bands to have a professionally designed website, not bad at all for a group that began when vinyl LPs still ruled and music videos were a hot new idea.

They're flouting conventions again, not to mention grammar and profanity standards, with Awesome; I F—kin' Shot That!, a concert film unlike any other.

The band didn't want to do the usual thing of hiring a big-name director and fancy cameras to document a show. Instead, they bought 50 video cameras and handed them out to fans at their Oct. 9, 2004 homecoming show at New York's Madison Square Garden.

They then spent a year editing the footage together into a 90-minute movie, supplementing the fan-shot material with some professional digital-video footage shot from the stage for the big overhead screen used in the live performance.

The result is incredibly raw, rough and occasionally raunchy. One fan immortalized himself urinating, others depicted themselves buying beer, dancing in the aisles or singing along with the songs — which everyone seems to know by heart.

Most of the fans also managed to grab footage of the Beasties performing. Some scenes are so close you can practically count nostril hairs; others so far away it might have been shot from the parking lot. There is a lot of camera shake, flaring and other amateur snafus; the film is subtitled "An Authorized Bootleg" for good reason.

But it's pure energy and for music fans, it's an absolute blast to experience. The film is scheduled to open in theatres on March 31, and the Beasties don't seem terribly worried about the movie title causing them any problems: the movie posters here have the full rude name. Let the exhibitors worry about that.

The original idea was to make a DVD, said Yauch, who acts as the band's unofficial movie and video director under the deliberately pompous pseudonym Nathaniel Hörnblowér.

He thought of involving the fans after seeing grainy performance video a fan shot using a cellphone, which he uploaded to the band's website.

"It was a real last-minute decision to do it at that Garden show," Yauch said. "We actually just decided three days before the show to try to pull it together."

The conscripting of the 50 amateur camera people, who all apparently worked for free, was done almost at random, although Horovitz allowed his younger brother Oliver, a film school student, to have one of the cameras.

Said Yauch: "We went on our website and asked if people had tickets for the show. The show was already sold out. We asked people who already had tickets if they'd be interested in filming.


Some scenes are so close you can practically count nostril hairs.

"We looked at a seating chart and picked people who were spread out all over the arena. That was the only criteria — although maybe they had to be over 18."

The cameras all had to be returned after the concert and every single one of them came back. Then the band returned them to the store they had purchased them from, to get a refund.

"Some people out there probably have cameras that were from our movie that they're filming their vacation on," Diamond said.

The Beasties are not only iconoclasts, they're thrifty ones, at that.

They estimate the movie cost just $1.2 million (U.S.) to make, with half of that going to licence fees for the music samples used in their songs, 24 of which are in the movie.

The hardest part of making the film, Yauch said, was editing the movie. It took more than a year going through 64 sources of concert footage, the 50 fan tapes, plus 14 professionally shot tapes.

The band is delighted with the results.

"Seeing stuff shot from an audience perspective to me definitely seems stronger," Yauch said. "You definitely get a different feeling from looking at the footage shot by people who are into it, you know what I mean?"

Horovitz agreed.

"The thing I really like about the movie is that the people shot it. The essence of hip-hop and punk rock is that we all make it ... the kids made it, we all made it together."

He doesn't want to take this audience participation thing too far, however.

"I'm not having them over to my house."

Diamond said that watching Awesome gave him a chance to finally experience a Beastie Boys show from the audience's perspective.

"I kept wanting to see what was going on with the audience. That's what I thought was so cool about them filming it. Being a performer, I'm never allowed to see that. I don't have an insight into that world when I'm performing."

The Beastie Boys celebrate their 25th anniversary this year, astounding longevity for any pop act. They credit it to their one-for-all, all-for-one pact that requires all three members to sign on to a project to make it happen.

"We do have a lot of pillow fights," Horovitz said.

The band members are all in their early 40s — Yauch's hair is quite grey — but experiments like the Awesome project keep the pop life fresh for them.

What could they possibly do next to top it?

"Toiletries," Diamond said, without skipping a beat.

"Everybody's got to smell good, you know what I mean?"

[paulb]

thanks for the insanely killer review Midzi! Not one bad review yet.... Adrocks comment on pillow fights brought a smile to my face.

[gaselite]

just so you guys know, almost all reviews will pop up here: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10006371/

[Senior Nick]

Awesome I'll have to check it out.

[YoungRemy]

The Globe and Mail, Canada (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20060123/SUNDANCE23/TPEntertainment/TopStories)

Films break free from the formula
Two ways of looking at a pop band: You've heard the line that 100 monkeys in a room with typewriters could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare? So, could 50 camera-wielding Beastie Boys fans in Madison Square Garden shoot a concert masterpiece?

The formula for shooting a rock concert has become, in the MTV era, predictable. It's all been done to death, Adam Yauch, one of three DJs, Mike D, MCA and Adrock, explained on Saturday, sitting in a red tent in the midst of the bunny run next to the Park Mountain Lodge: "It's not even film really. They're shot with a producer calling the shots and the cuts using three digital video cameras. One camera tilts 90 degrees, then it flips over to the other, there's a zoom, [then] an audience shot."

The Beasties' movie is a true from-the-audience experience of the concert, bouncing between every possible perspective on the show -- or even visiting the men's room for a break. The film, produced by Canada's ThinkFilm and called Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That, moves about the speed of an edit for every beat.

[YoungRemy]

Variety (http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117929317?categoryId=31&cs=1)

To film their Oct. 9, 2004, Madison Square Garden concert, longtime rap superstars the Beastie Boys handed cameras (mostly high-8) to 50 excited fans, who were told "Do whatever you want, just keep shooting." Resulting, awkwardly titled "Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!" has a good sales hook in that shot-by-youse angle. In fact, the final product is highly post-produced, with dynamic editing and much visual gimmickry filigreeing a high-octane set. One of the more exciting feature records of a single-act perfperf, pic should attract quick theatrical playoff and long-term home play.
After a jokey introductory text scroll and Hendrix-sampling fanfare by ever-impressive turntablist Mix Master Mike, the three Beasties -- Mike D (nee Michael Diamond), Adrock (Adam Horowitz) and MCA (Adam Yauch) make their entrance in matching green-and-yellow sweatsuits, launching into a roof-raising "Triple Trouble."

Right away there's considerable difference between image quality from the various cameras (some DV rather than High-8). Generally, the closer the lenser is to the stage, the better the definition. Shots of the crowd, being underlit, are grainy.

This isn't good cinematography by any formal standard, as the operators are amateurs; shots frequently bounce to the beat. But the sense of immediacy and excitement is contagious.

Yet, this is far removed from a homevideo. As masterminded by director Nathanial Hornblower (another pseudonym for Yauch) and supervising editor Neal Usatin, the rhythm of the images is as motivating as the thumping music. The B-Boys -- not to mention the crowd -- are clearly amped by this hometown gig, which ended their "Challah at Your Boy" tour.

Pic's first section is relatively straightforward, albeit sometimes dazzlingly cut, with the performers' joyful onstage posturing complemented only by some stage-rear and overhead videoscreens (which deploy hilarious found footage).

There's a second act of sorts as a five-piece live funk band -- the Beasties plus drummer Alfredo Ortiz and keyboardist Money Mark -- roll on atop a carnival-float-type ministage.

After this interlude, trio and Mix Master Mike return in T-shirts flagging game names (Scrabble, etc.). Subsequent tunes are much more elaborate in visual terms, with stretches of B&W, solarized images, superimposition, freeze-frames, split-screen, color-keying and the occasional added graphic. (There are also prankish snippets with the lowdown on camera operators as they leave the hall for beer and the bathroom.)

Added visual gimmicky starts to approach overload before the more simply presented encores.

From party anthems to politically charged songs, the group's sense of musical adventure is well represented, though those disinclined toward hip-hop are unlikely to be converted. Sound recording (pointedly not by the 50 amateurs) and mix is first-rate. Several individual numbers would make for excellent musicvideos.

Camera (color/B&W, Hi-8- and DV-to-HD), 50 fans; supervising editor, Neal Usatin; editors, Michael Boczon, Remi Gletsos; music, Beastie Boys; music mixers, Duro, Paul Hsu; sound (Dolby Digital), Jon Weiner; visual effects, Boczon, Gletsos. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (Park City at Midnight), Jan. 21, 2006. Running time: 89 MIN.

silly critics!! the tour was far from over on October 9th... The last leg of the American part of "The pageant" wasnt until December, at Nassau Coliseum, then they hit, Europe, Australia, and Japan...

[YoungRemy]

Moviehole.net

The Beastie Boys were always one of those bands I admired for their creativity but rarely took the time to listen to beyond their hits (Brass Monkey, Fight for Your Right To Party, Hey Ladies) in spite of 20 years of ground-breaking hip hop and rave performances. However, their Sundance premiere of “Awesome, I F***kin’ Shot That” was intriguing for reasons other than their music. For a 2004 October performance in Madison Square Garden, the band gave 50 digital video cameras to 50 lucky fans and asked them to film the performance. The only condition was to keep the cameras rolling no matter what. The result was a unique look at the Beastie Boys phenomenon in the manner of a lovely, bass-heavy concert film. “Were they pumping the bass?” was the first thing Beastie Boy/Director Adam Yauch, aka MCA, aka Nathanial Hornblower asked when I interviewed him, along with the rest of the band, after the screening. While Beastie fans will love the film, the average movie fans may find it mildly entertaining. Multiple views of a performance easily wear thin after the first 30 minutes, but it does demonstrate the incredible versatility of the band, including their lounge band act in the middle where they all expertly play their instruments as opposed to their creative, stage-roaming rap. And, if nothing else, pioneers such as The Beastie Boys deserve to have a film celebrating one of the most innovative forms in American music history.

[roosta]

i can't wait for this...top stuff

[b-grrrlie]

KUTV (local TV) (http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_022180247.html)
Beastie Boys' Movie A Hit Among Fans At Sundance

PARK CITY, Utah The biggest party this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival might not have been in one of Park City's overflowing night clubs.

The late Saturday screening of the documentary ``Awesome; I F.....' Shot That,'' which documents a sold-out concert by the rap group Beastie Boys on Oct. 9, 2004 at Madison Square Garden, had an atmosphere not unlike a concert itself.

As members of the band took seats near the back of the packed Park City Library auditorium, scattered applause greeted them. Rhythmic clapping, the kind used by an eager audience to beckon the start of a show, subsided as senior programmer Trevor Groth introduced the documentary.

Groth's introduction was much more collegial than the usual staid introductions given at the festival, and Groth admitted being a longtime fan of the band. The documentary relied heavily on 50 hand-held cameras given to audience members at the concert, and it makes for a concert film as close to being there as possible.

That vibe wasn't lost on the Sundance audience, which clapped after many of the songs and cheered throughout the film. All three band members (Michael Diamond, Adam Horowitz and Adam Yauch) directed the film and took questions from audience members after the screening.

They were relatively quiet, responding with short answers or quips. Perhaps they were saving their energy. The Beastie Boys are scheduled to perform at a private party Monday night hosted by Internet site MySpace.com and the arts organization Gen Art. The documentary officially opens in New York and Los Angeles on March 31.

[b-grrrlie]

A piece from a blog (http://www.eye.net/blog/?p=322), from the press conference. ...The next time I’m in a room with famous people, the actual room will be even stranger. In a giant orange tent emblazoned with Burton posters and logos at the base of the Park City Mountain Resort, the Beastie Boys hold court before the press. Outside their track suits, they look like venture capitalists in their mid-40s, but that’s okay because they’re still the Beastie Boys. What’s more, their new concert movie, Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That (“What will the Moviefone guy say?” ponders Mike D., rhetorically), is fantastic. Shot by 50 fans with cheap consumer cameras from various vantages in Madison Square Garden in a show from October of 2004, it’s a wildly experimental and mostly successful deconstruction-cum-demolition of concert movie-isms. The director credited with the masterstroke is Nathanial Hornblower, who’s really the graying but rather-more-handsome-now-than-when-he-was-singing-about-titties Adam “MCA” Yauch. “Was the sub bumping in the theatre?” he asks the press. “Good. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t get gypped.” Every so often I lose track of what they’re saying because some snowboarder is yammering a few inches away, beyond the boundary of orange nylon. Everyone feels very cool just being here....

[b-grrrlie]

Salt Lake Tribune (http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3423907) Sundance: Musicians offer a close-up look at what it's all about
The making of a band
By Dan Nailen
The Salt Lake Tribune


The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, director of "Awesome: I F---in' Shot That!"
Music documentaries and concert films are nothing new at the Sundance Film Festival, but this year's crop includes two pop-related flicks that stand out from anything festival-goers have seen in the past.
"Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out" and ''Awesome: I F---in' Shot That!'' offer visual perspectives rarely seen in traditional rock docs and concert flicks, and both were directed by members of the bands captured on film.
"Everyone Stares" is the result of Police drummer Stewart Copeland's obsessive Super 8 filming of the run that took Copeland, bassist/singer Sting and guitarist Andy Summers from British punk obscurity to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"I think we were in Phoenix or somewhere in Arizona [in the late 70s] with a day off, and we just got paid and had some loose change, which was rare in those days, so I got a movie camera and got into an obession of filming everything," Copeland said. "I pretty much lived the whole Police experience through the lens, which was sort of a drag. Then I forgot about it."
Copeland stashed his footage in a closet and went on to a successful career scoring films after the Police split in the mid-80s. Fast-forward a couple of decades, when Copeland gets a call from the Sundance Channel for a piece on film composers, asking if he has any old Police footage.

Copeland pulled out his old film and, after it was converted into something he could play with on his computer, found himself editing a rough cut of what would become "Everyone Stares."
"It's about what it's like to be in a band like this," Copeland said, describing the insider's perspective of his movie. "It all comes into the camera. Everybody addresses the camera by name . . . The viewer of this film is being addressed personally by the screaming fans."

Beastie Boy Adam Yauch's "Awesome: I F---in' Shot That!" has a nearly opposite perspective. Yauch put 50 digital cameras in the hands of Beastie Boys fans to film the group's 2004 Madison Square Garden concert, creating a "concert film" like no other.
The only instruction that Yauch gave his amateur camera crew was to keep shooting the concert, beginning to end. Yauch added about 10 fixed cameras on stage to catch him, Mike D and King Ad-Rock performing, and in Mixmaster Mike's DJ booth.
"They could shoot anything they wanted," Yauch said, describing the fans. "There's certain moments when they're filming each other and you see different people getting into it, and you kind of see different people's personalities. To me, that's the most interesting stuff."
The Beastie Boys have been a fan-friendly act during their two-decade career, and even though Yauch isn't much of a fan of concert films, it was the fans themselves that inspired him to make "Awesome."
"We were on tour and I was looking at the band's [online] message boards one night, and some kid had shot part of the concert on his camera-phone and then posted it," Yauch said. ''Maybe 30 seconds of us running out on stage. It was all shaky and all over the place, but had an energy to it. The fact that it was at eye-level with the audience, it felt very real. I thought, 'Why don't we document a whole concert like that?' ''
Copeland's work on "Everyone Stares" was basically a solo mission, but he knew he would need Sting and Summer's approval to use Police music in the film, which he got.
"The main thing that struck me is how cheerful it all is," Copeland said. "I don't have any shots of us arguing. There's such a myth about the band fighting all the time that I tend to believe it myself."

[Shadbells]

Nice reviews. Thank you all for posting these.

Very exciting. :)

[YoungRemy]

kvue, tx (http://www.kvue.com/sharedcontent/movies/movienews2/012306ccdrMoviesOTTsundance.30a8c3f5.html)

SO WHATCHA WANT (A CAMERA, OF COURSE): The Beastie Boys unveiled their highly democratic concert film, Awesome: I [expletive] Shot That!, at a raucous screening late Saturday night at the Library Center. (We can't print the full title, but festival programmer Trevor Groth says it's his favorite in the history of the festival). Here's the skinny: The boys, who attended the screening, handed out 50 cameras to 50 fans at a 2004 Madison Square Garden show and told them to cut loose. The results are kinetic and spontaneous, including trips to the men's room and the beer line. No Brass Monkey, though.

[YoungRemy]

The Ottawa Citizen (http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/arts/story.html?id=5e537e12-ebc9-4bed-b161-53145ef7d24f&k=50751&p=1)

Beastie Boys put a new spin on concert film


Katherine Monk, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, January 24, 2006

PARK CITY, Utah - You gotta fight for your right to make a movie.
At the Sundance Film Festival, the idea is nothing less than a way of life for independent filmmakers in the U.S, but when the Beastie Boys show up in the midst of the Park City slush with a film of their own, the Do-It-Yourself idea grows a whole new layer of meaning.

Here with their first film, a non-fiction reel that chronicles their sold-out show at Madison Square Garden in October 2004, Michael Diamond (Mike D), Ad-rock (Adam Horovitz) and M.C.A (Adam Yauch) shared their thoughts about what makes their concert movie different.

"If you do a (live performance movie) for MTV, you get the boom operator and the cranes and they put the camera on the 90-degree tilt, and there's just a very traditional way of doing things," says Yauch.

In order to overcome the possibility of becoming a cliche -- which wouldn't just be a disappointment for Beastie Boys fans, it might as well be a suicide note for the band that cut a swath through the slick, overproduced early '80s landscape with their raw punk-rock rap -- the trio took a whole new approach.

They handed 50 digital video cameras to their fans, and asked them to shoot the show.

The result is the aptly titled, but not fully publishable, Awesome; I F---in' Shot That!, which premiered at Sundance as part of the Midnight program over the weekend.

"I definitely felt that seeing stuff shot from an audience point of view is much stronger (than a traditional concert film)," says Yauch. "You get a whole different perspective when you see it through the eyes of someone who is really into it. It's not industry standard ... it's instinct."

Directed by Yauch under the pseudonym of Nathaniel Hornblower, the original idea to incorporate fans came from seeing a short piece of fan-shot footage posted on the Internet.

The low-budget look of fragmented pixels and low resolution appealed to the band's collective esthetics, and once they all agreed to the premise of a fan-generated documentary, they began to put the production pieces together.

"We reached out to several companies, but it was THINKFilm that got it right away. So it was just really cool to work with them all the way through," says Yauch.

Though Yauch is the one who who assumed "formal" directing duties, the trio is clearly here as a team. Besides, they say, they got sick and tired of the so-called Hornblower by the end of the process.

"He may be a genius, but ... not coherent. It's difficult to work with him and we don't like really like him anymore," says Diamond, smiling, as the high-pitched whine of a nearby snowmobile drowns out the rest of the thought.

Originally conceived as a DVD, and not a theatrical release, the band says they felt no pressure to deliver on their idea.

"It's not like we set out to do something like this (and get into Sundance)," says Yauch. "We felt we could shoot it and see how it turns out. The pressure wasn't on. It was just an experiment to shoot stuff."

For all intents and purposes, the $1.2-million U.S. experiment was a success.

For the band, the experience gave them the chance to step back and see what they do for a living with a new set of eyes.

"Everyone out there has a different agenda," says Diamond. "I wanted to learn about those different worlds and to see what was happening in the audience. As a performer, I never had any insight into that world ... but now, I feel I do."

For the audience who watched the film's premiere, the consensus was overwhelmingly positive, saying the film hummed with energy and recreated a tired genre.

That's good news for Beastie Boys fans, as well as executives at THINKFilm, who plan to release the film in Canada and the United States March 31.

"I think the biggest thing we learned on this, and it applies to everything we do, was to make sure the three of us were together on everything," says Horovitz.

"Every decision has to be unanimous, otherwise it doesn't happen."

[razmatazern]

Though Yauch is the one who who assumed "formal" directing duties, the trio is clearly here as a team. Besides, they say, they got sick and tired of the so-called Hornblower by the end of the process.

"He may be a genius, but ... not coherent. It's difficult to work with him and we don't like really like him anymore," says Diamond, smiling

haha i was wondering why some of those reviews mentioned that it was directed by all three of them. that's a good explanation.

[b-grrrlie]

USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-01-24-sundance-music-docs_x.htm) (not really a review, but there's one of the Getty pics without watermarks)
The Beastie Boys handed out 50 video cameras to fans at the band's Madison Square Garden show in October 2004. Awesome: I (Expletive) Shot That! is the result. Band member Adam Yauch stitched together the disparate imagery to create an impressionistic look at the event from multiple points of view.

It's more about the people at the show, he says; the band is a supporting player. "I love the stuff the fans shot of each other," Yauch says.

"There's the guys who are trying to sneak backstage, and there's somebody who's taking a trip to the bathroom and some guy's buying beer," Yauch says. The movie opens in limited release March 31.

[b-grrrlie]

Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060123.wxsundance23/BNStory/Entertainment/) ...
Two ways of looking at a pop band: You've heard the line that 100 monkeys in a room with typewriters could eventually produce the works of Shakespeare? So, could 50 camera-wielding Beastie Boys fans in Madison Square Garden shoot a concert masterpiece?

The formula for shooting a rock concert has become, in the MTV era, predictable. It's all been done to death, Adam Yauch, one of three DJs, Mike D, MCA and Adrock, explained on Saturday, sitting in a red tent in the midst of the bunny run next to the Park Mountain Lodge: "It's not even film really. They're shot with a producer calling the shots and the cuts using three digital video cameras. One camera tilts 90 degrees, then it flips over to the other, there's a zoom, [then] an audience shot."

The Beasties' movie is a true from-the-audience experience of the concert, bouncing between every possible perspective on the show -- or even visiting the men's room for a break. The film, produced by Canada's ThinkFilm and called Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That, moves about the speed of an edit for every beat.

There's another way of looking at rock stars. Back in the day, when the peroxided pop stars The Police started their rise to fame, Stewart Copeland, the American drummer with the band, used his first earnings to buy a Super-8 camera. He kept it running for the next three years and, a couple of decades later, assembled a documentary film, Everyone Stares: The Police, Inside Out. Along with the usual backstage, hotel room and studio candid moments, the film offers Copeland's ruminations on the inanity of fame, and the way that "adulation becomes an obligation" as he wonders if it's healthy not to have bought groceries or driven your own car in a couple of years. Though it doesn't sound so onerous, it's all a matter of perspective.

[b-grrrlie]

CBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/23/sundance/main1228106.shtml) (CBS) The biggest party this weekend at the Sundance Film Festival might not have been in one of Park City's overflowing night clubs.

The late Saturday screening of the documentary "Awesome; I F*****' Shot That," which documents a sold-out concert by the rap group Beastie Boys on Oct. 9, 2004 at Madison Square Garden, had an atmosphere not unlike a concert itself.

As members of the band took seats near the back of the packed Park City Library auditorium, scattered applause greeted them. Rhythmic clapping, the kind used by an eager audience to beckon the start of a show, subsided as senior programmer Trevor Groth introduced the documentary.

Groth's introduction was much more collegial than the usual staid introductions given at the festival, and Groth admitted being a longtime fan of the band. The documentary relied heavily on 50 hand-held cameras given to audience members at the concert, and it makes for a concert film as close to being there as possible.

That vibe wasn't lost on the Sundance audience, which clapped after many of the songs and cheered throughout the film. All three band members - Michael Diamond, Adam Horowitz and Adam Yauch - directed the film and took questions from audience members after the screening.

They were relatively quiet, responding with short answers or quips. Perhaps they were saving their energy. The Beastie Boys are scheduled to perform at a private party Monday night hosted by Internet site MySpace.com and the arts organization Gen Art. The documentary officially opens in New York and Los Angeles on March 31.

[b-grrrlie]

Moviehole (http://www.moviehole.net/news/20060123_basham_at_sundance_23106.html) Basham at Sundance - 23/1/06
Posted by Clint Morris on January 23, 2006

There really is no place like Sundance. And I don’t mean that in a completely good way, either. Think about it. If your goal was to pick a place where industry people could all come together and watch new, independent films while networking and partying, would you pick a remote ski village in the middle of winter? Maybe walking up and down this K-2 mountain everyday to get to the house I’m staying in with five other people has something to do with my grumbling. On the other hand, as I’m writing this I’m staring out a picture window at a snow-covered pine valley that looks like something from Bing Crosby’s “Holiday Inn” when he first introduced “White Christmas”. And in spite of what people say about the festival becoming a star-gazing, over-blown, celebrity schmooze-fest, I’ve somehow been lucky enough to meet some truly good people. So maybe these film fanatics knew what they were doing after all.

On the other hand, I still have three days left.

........

Awesome, I F***kin’ Shot That
The Beastie Boys were always one of those bands I admired for their creativity but rarely took the time to listen to beyond their hits (Brass Monkey, Fight for Your Right To Party, Hey Ladies) in spite of 20 years of ground-breaking hip hop and rave performances. However, their Sundance premiere of “Awesome, I F***kin’ Shot That” was intriguing for reasons other than their music. For a 2004 October performance in Madison Square Garden, the band gave 50 digital video cameras to 50 lucky fans and asked them to film the performance. The only condition was to keep the cameras rolling no matter what. The result was a unique look at the Beastie Boys phenomenon in the manner of a lovely, bass-heavy concert film. “Were they pumping the bass?” was the first thing Beastie Boy/Director Adam Yauch, aka MCA, aka Nathanial Hornblower asked when I interviewed him, along with the rest of the band, after the screening. While Beastie fans will love the film, the average movie fans may find it mildly entertaining. Multiple views of a performance easily wear thin after the first 30 minutes, but it does demonstrate the incredible versatility of the band, including their lounge band act in the middle where they all expertly play their instruments as opposed to their creative, stage-roaming rap. And, if nothing else, pioneers such as The Beastie Boys deserve to have a film celebrating one of the most innovative forms in American music history.

[YoungRemy]

USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2006-01-24-sundance-music-docs_x.htm)


Musical documentaries in play
The Beastie Boys handed out 50 video cameras to fans at the band's Madison Square Garden show in October 2004. Awesome: I (Expletive) Shot That! is the result. Band member Adam Yauch stitched together the disparate imagery to create an impressionistic look at the event from multiple points of view.

It's more about the people at the show, he says; the band is a supporting player. "I love the stuff the fans shot of each other," Yauch says.

"There's the guys who are trying to sneak backstage, and there's somebody who's taking a trip to the bathroom and some guy's buying beer," Yauch says. The movie opens in limited release March 31.


Festival Hits and misses
http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2006/01/25/1410301.html
The Docs

Last year, penguins marched. Before that, Morgan Spurlock got supersized.

What are the documentaries generating the most talk this year?

For starters, there's the passionate, political Wrestling With Angels, about Pulitzer-prize winning playwright Tony Kushner, who penned Angels in America and Munich. Also getting superb buzz -- Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, The Beastie Boys' Awesome! I (Expletive) Shot That, Leonard Cohen I'm Your Man and Neil Young: Heart of Gold.

[gaselite]

Rotten Tomatoes' own review



SUNDANCE: "Awesome: I F**kin' Shot That" Review

Posted by RT-News on Thursday, Feb. 02, 2006, 07:25 PM


Jen Yamato writes: "Filmed beginning to end during the last concert of their 2004 tour, the Beastie Boys' feature-length concert documentary "Awesome: I F**kin' Shot That!" (screened at Sundance) is much more than your average captured-on-tape performance video; it's a mind-blowing, kinetic audio-visual extravaganza that will make a Beastie fan out of any viewer.

Director Nathanial Hornblower (AKA Beastie Boy Adam Yauch) opens the film in real time, as the fifty lucky ticket-holding fans selected to be "camera operators" are each given a camera and told to shoot whatever they want during the concert, as long as they shoot it in its entirety. DJ extraordinaire Mix Master Mike makes his way through the arena at Madison Square Garden as thousands of screaming fans roar in anticipation, and the three MCs -- MCA (Adam Yauch), Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz), and Mike D (Mike Diamond) -- go through their pre-game motions backstage.

What follows is 90 minutes of fast cuts, pulsating beats, a voracious hometown crowd and seamless, electric performances by the Beastie Boys. The playlist reads like a best-of list as they cover their entire twenty-year discography, including a pace-breaking mid-set interlude of instrumental songs. If nothing else, it's apparent that the trio can still put on an intense, balls-out live performance.

But what makes "Awesome" so much more than just a phenomenal concert is its visual styling as a film. Given no creative restrictions, each camera operator chooses different aspects of the concert to film, from straight-up shots of the Beastie Boys on stage to their fellow fans in the audience reveling in the show (or, truthfully, sitting bemusedly in the upper nosebleeds). One camera follows its owner to the restroom; another captures a wild-eyed Ben Stiller in the audience, feverishly rapping every line by heart. Director-producer Yauch edits all fifty sets of footage (plus a few professionally shot sequences, for added measure) together perfectly, adding digitized visual effects that ebb and flow with the tone of the music. By the end of the film, you feel the same post-show buzz that fans in attendance obviously felt; when Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor show up as credits roll, your ears are ringing just like theirs.

It was after seeing a fan's 30-second camera-phone clip of themselves in concert posted on a message board that the Beastie Boys got the idea to shoot an entire concert. Amazingly, they managed to pull production plans together only three days before the last date of their "To the 5 Boroughs" tour; furthermore, it wasn't until they viewed the resulting footage that they realized their film -- intended originally as a concert DVD -- had theatrical potential.

Beastie lovers will love the larger than life, big-screen treatment and will inevitably add the DVD to their collection; those that weren't already fans will not only convert after seeing "Awesome," they'll swear they'd been to a concert."


This movie sounds like a goddamn event

[YoungRemy]

Amazingly, they managed to pull production plans together only three days before the last date of their "To the 5 Boroughs" tour;

again with the wrong info...

The American leg of the Pageant Tour ended in December at Nassau Coliseum, followed by a Euro, Australia, and Japanese tour...


great review though, captures everything perfectly...

[gaselite]

yeah the bad info is annoying but hey, it's the review that counts ;D