Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

camdenam I wanted to watch this documentary because out of the blue one day I became immensely curious as to how many people actually listen to death metal and black metal and also why they chose to do so. I tend not to like the more extreme metal bands, though unlike many people, who have very strong reactions either way, I've always been the unusual case of a fence-sitter, not opposed to it in anyway but not in love with it either. For instance I really don't mind Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and even It Dies Today, All That Remains, and Mastodon and was even leaning in a metalhead direction in my younger days, but I guess I just never "got" the whole death growl, satanic, gory imagery "thing." But the question I was after, and which I think this film answers, is what draws people to the most extreme and controversial representatives of the genre, like Scandinavian black metal and bands like Cannibal Corpse. On the one hand it confirmed my suspicion that much of the scene (like Slipknot and Gwar) is tongue in cheek and not overly serious; just pageantry, entertainment, and playful provocation of the mainstream. Many of these bands seem to nurture a culture of envelope-pushing, and the market just encourages this, rewarding those that shock and awe just as much as it does in other industries. But the film also reveals a deeper truth that was really at the heart of it, and that is the sense of power, freedom, escape, and belonging that the music offers and which "outsiders" feel especially drawn towards. Its not so much the music or the lyrics that appeal as much as it is the big "f**k you" that it all represents and which empowers the listener with that shared feeling of resistance. In short this film provided an excellent and accessible analysis of the genre, with deep insights into the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of its practitioners and followers. And of course the perfect person to do it is our narrator, an avid metalhead and anthropologist, whose obvious enthusiasm for every interview and festival he goes to almost makes you wish you were a die-hard metalhead too.

soundclash85 I've been a fan of metal (the music itself, anyway) for many years now. I had been aware of this documentary's existence for a while, but only decided to watch it recently. Unfortunately, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey was exactly as bad as I feared, and I have to say a very unimpressive attempt to document this vast genre of music.The first issue with the film is that it presents itself as something to appeal to both metal fans and non-metal fans alike. It tries to educate those unfamiliar with the genre, while providing some fan service to those who love it. The film continually presses the issue of metal and its fan base being looked down upon and marginalised by the rest of society, and unfortunately rather than helping the situation, Metal merely ends up re-enforcing all of the worst aspects of the subculture. Amongst the delights we are treated to are some ridiculous interviews with clueless teenagers talking about how awesome they are for liking metal and how everyone else is an idiot. Way to help the cause, guys.The biggest problem with Metal: A Headbanger's Journey comes in the form of the "Definitive Metal Family Tree" penned by director Sam Dunn and referenced frequently throughout the film. To say this "definitve" family tree contains factual inaccuracies would be an understatement. Rather than actually checking his facts as most documentary makers would do, it appears that Dunn has created this document based entirely on his own opinions, and as a result there are some truly bizarre inclusions, omissions and definitions which would be obvious to anyone even moderately knowledgeable about metal. The fact that Dunn has been a metalhead since the mid '80s only makes this tree more puzzling. For instance, did you know that Slade are a glam metal band? It's true according to A Headbanger's Journey. I wasn't aware that they were even considered a metal band, yet there they are, listed in a category apparently derived from "Shock Rock", which includes bands such as Kiss. Never mind the fact that Kiss were formed post-Slade, and considered them to be one of their primary influences. We've also got Children of Bodom labelled thrash, Judas Priest lumped in with power metal rather than in the NWOBHM category, and (rather hilariously) Cradle of Filth in the "Norwegian Black Metal" category, of which they are neither - a classic rookie mistake.Then we have the inclusion of decidedly un-metal categories such as grunge, "Hard Alternative" (including bands such as Jane's Addiction and Smashing Pumpkins), "Pop Metal" (all of which would mostly be considered hard rock), and the aforementioned "Norwegian Black Metal" category, which completely fails to take into account all non-Norwegian second wave black metal acts around in both the early '90s and later. Things like nu-metal are also included, which a great many metal fans don't consider "metal" at all. In short, the whole chart is laughable and looks like it was drawn up by a 15 year old kid who'd just purchased his first Slipknot album. There are far too many errors on the chart to talk about here, but go and have a look for yourself to see the true scale of the problem. Granted, it's difficult to get it right 100% of the time with a genre as vast as metal, but the fact that this is being presented as "fact" in a documentary film, coupled with how atrociously wrong a lot of it is, makes you think that Dunn really should have done some research before making his movie.All in all, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey comes off as shallow, ill-informed and self-serving to the Nth degree. I think a lot of people (metalheads included) will find this film at best pointless and at worst downright embarrassing. Dunn's motives were noble but in the end he failed miserably.

fourtwentylove Like other reviews I agree that this film is preaching to the converted and well... what can I say people enjoy being acknowledged, hence the good reviews. But as a "documentary" it lacked A LOT of real information. I certainly did not learn anything new (except that cradle of filth is now being considered Norwegian black metal - i mean who made these categories? Is it sloppiness or lack of knowledge?) and I'm not sure non-metal heads would learn much either. I have a real problem with the gender/sexuality bit- the word sexism was thrown out but not used in a single coherent thought... the only all female metal band they covered is girlschool! really? I would have appreciated hearing more of an intelligent analysis or theory of why metal either is or perceived to be a male, heterosexual and WHITE genre. Maybe that's asking too much but therein lies the problem of this doc. Its too ambitious- tries to explain the whole culture and history of metal in 90 minutes! It clearly lacked focus and would have done much better honing in on a particular area but that would require more research instead of jerking off every interviewee... however maybe this film has inspired and opened doors for future film makers to really explore various nuisances in the metal scene... one can only hope.

dfle3 Over a year ago I saw this documentary at the Melbourne International Film Festival (I think). Not being a headbanger, per se (though I do like some heavy metal), I found this documentary very informative and interesting.It's presented by avowed "headbanger" (so called for how fans react to this music) Sam Dunn. Now, there is no doubt some interest in a fan-boy waxing lyrical about their favourite things, but what raises this documentary above the average is that Sam Dunn just happens to be a scholar-an anthropologist-thus ensuring that the content is well thought out and articulated.Of particular fascination to me was the "family tree" diagram featured frequently in this docu of how the various genres of heavy metal relate to each other...that must be the anthropology angle kicking in, I think. When I contacted a site related to this docu, someone mentioned that the DVD of this may have the diagram (or at least future editions would) as a distinct element of the DVD.The docu covers heavy metal as a genre-it's various sub-branches and its putative father, so to speak. What was particularly good about this was that whilst Dunn did posit who he thought created heavy metal as a genre (Black Sabbath), he does provide video footage of bands which piqued my interest in the subject and which could perhaps be argued to have created the genre themselves. In other words, you don't get a completely biased view of the subject from Dunn.Many of the legends of the genre are interviewed in this docu-Tommy Iommi from Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Lemmy from Motorhead and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson. Not being a great fan of Iron Maiden, I must say that Dickinson was a highlight of this docu for his honest and insightful comments on the art of performing.As there is a school of thought, perhaps, that Metallica are the pinnacle of this genre, they are conspicuous by their large absence from this docu.I've reviewed some heavy metal albums at Amazon under this id. e.g. Coldseed.