Watch loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies For Free

Very disappointed :(

Absolutely Brilliant!

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

If you didn't know about the pixies, this isn't your chance to find out more and that's a good thing. Why? Well if you didn't discover their greatness on your own, which is the only way you could do it back in the day really, this film will not convince you of that, only being a fan of their music will.This review is not directed at anyone in particular's review on this film but, you're COMPLETELY missing the point if you watch this film with your arms folded, in order to be proved that this was and still is a great band in Alternative music's history. You want to know more about them? Well, that's what the internet is for and you can research any information you want.A completely necessary viewing by any Pixies fan. Lots of live footage. Candid remarks and statements by the band and in particular the band member's own views on it's later meltdown. And I love the end when they show some home movies of the band in slow motion, it looks like when they were on tour for Doolittle in 1989. The DVD contains footage not seen on TV like Kim Deal and Frank Black visiting Sigur Ros in their studio in Iceland.

The film kicks off with a quote from Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, about his famous song, Smells Like Teen Spirit: "I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies." As a tribute documentary, loudQUIETloud goes on to explore the Pixies strange career and provide some clues to why they have been so influential.The Pixies established themselves musically with deep contrasts, not just in volume (as the title suggests) but by combining many strange elements, melodic and abrasive, and cryptic lyrics - they are almost like a David Lynch rock experience (one of their songs is a cover from a song in Lynch's early Eraserhead). What made them extraordinary is that they disbanded just as they approached critical acclaim (within six years) and didn't reap the benefits of their popularity until they re-formed nearly twelve years later - at which point this movie begins.Tickets for their 2004 reunion tour sold out in four minutes, but the band members are no longer young. As the film develops we see some have families with small children, but they all have outside interests, musical or otherwise, and 'being the Pixies' is hardly something they identify with beyond a sense of responsibility to make sure the live performances go well. The detachment is so great that a struggling interviewer, asking an innocuous question about whether they will make another album, is nonplussed that the band really haven't considered the question one way or the other.Lead singer Frank Black ('Black Francis') is a bulky, almost intimidating figure with a shaven head, so it's something of a revelation to see him doing positive affirmations before bed, telling himself, "I am a nice person, people like me . . ." Bassist Kim Deal looks with surprise at the blisters on her fingers after the first concert - Frank reassures her they'll get better in about a week. Both of them continue working on their own material while on tour, Kim for the Breeders and Frank on his solo work. The band seem to accept that it is not in their natures to talk to each other much, even when they are getting on fine, but they seem more mature than the days of early acrimony where one or the other would unilaterally make public announcements of the band's imminent break-up.The sound and camera-work throughout is first rate, so if you like the Pixies even a little bit, this is a rare opportunity to experience them at their best. For those who have never heard of them, you might recall the song, 'Where Is My Mind?' as the exit music to the film Fight Club, or sections from their records 'Gigantic' and 'Hang Wire in the United States of Leland. For fans, the song listing taken from the credits includes: Where is My Mind, Hey, Here Comes Your Man, U-Mass, Caribou, Gouge Away, Nimrod's Son, In Heaven, Wave of Mutilation, Something Against You, Bone Machine, Cactus, Vamos, Monkey Gone to Heaven and also the Breeders song Iris.

Of the several ROCK-umetaries playing at this year's ROCKDOCS festival this one is undoubtedly the best. Due in part to the power of the band being profiled ("Pixies") and the expansive inside look presented by the filmmakers that details the individual member's lives inside and outside the band.It was said about the Beatles that each musician was excellent in his own right but when the four of them gathered together something 'magic' happened. This also applies to the Pixies and their relationships to each other, as they are ironically the four most uncommunicative people in the world when sitting backstage, but put them in front of an audience and you get an eruption of music and lyrical poetry that stays with you long after the concert has ended.Formed in 1986 by Charles Thompson (aka 'Black Francis'), the band achieved a modicum of success until in 1992 Thompson dissolved the band due to friction with co-lead singer Kim Deal (who also fronts 'The Breeders' w/ her sister). In the intervening years the band's music inspired dozens of other bands and became a cult phenomenon. Now some 12 years leader, Thompson has decided to put the Pixies back together and see if what they once had can be duplicated.Of course, the long years between have brought about a number of changes among the members, most notably the rehabilitation of Kim Deal's alcoholic problems. Although she still drinks alcohol-'free' beers by the dozen her recollection of the Pixies concert years are a haze and now she's forced to listen to their albums to recall the parts she played. She enlists her sister Kelly to join her for the tour to segregate herself from the band and any partying on the road. Kelly also proves useful as she likes to 'interview' other band members with extremely pointed questions offering quite a bit of comic relief.In addition to Kim, each member of the band has followed a strange road since the Pixies break-up with only Deal and Thompson able sustain solo careers in the interim. The documentary successfully brings all of their varied paths together within the framework of rehearsals, warm-up tours, and the inevitable European and USA venues with fan adulation escalating from one date to the next culminating at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC.Most poignant of the non-band stories is the movie is that of a teenage musician's adulation of Kim Deal and her gifting of the paperback book "Brave" to her idol. The novelette turned her on to the Pixies after they'd disappeared from the scene, but the music inspired her to form her own band. The end credits features the Pixies-wannabe's jamming in the basement and continuing the 'Pixies' legacy.This coda completes the circle started at the beginning of the film with Kurt Cobain's quote on how the Pixies were one of the bands that inspired Nirvana. In fact, Cobain said that Nirvana was trying to BE the Pixies.As you can see, if you're not a fan of this band now, I guarantee by the end of this film you'll be making a beeline to the nearest music store (as I did). So if you only make it to one movie at this year's festival, then let this be the one!

The film loudQUIETloud fails to be an effective documentary for several reasons. The first failure is that the filmmaker does nothing to justify the making of this documentary—the film is so devoid of background information or historical context that, for someone without extensive prior knowledge of the Pixies, there is nothing to suggest that the Pixies are important or interesting enough to merit documenting their comeback. The filmmaker makes the audacious claim that the Pixies are among the most influential bands of all-time, and maybe they are—but the film does nothing to prove this or show how or why they are influential. The opening quote from Nirvana's Kurt Cobain is the only time in the film where we are given a sense of the Pixies' impact on modern pop music. Where are the interviews with music historians, music critics, or other musicians that would validate and define the Pixies' influence? Where are the excerpts from Rolling Stone articles about the Pixies—during their heyday, their breakup, their absence, and their reunion? Surely if the Pixies were indeed 'one of the most influential bands of all-time,' then these secondary sources would be overflowing with information that the filmmaker could have used to place in the Pixies in the context of modern music for viewers who aren't already familiar. Yet there is not ONE secondary source interview, not one article quoted—the film consists entirely of interviews with band members, live concert footage, and interviews with the band's family and fans. In this way, loudQUIETloud feels like little more than a puff piece, a made-for-the-fans DVD of the tour released by the band itself. If you are looking for live concert footage of the Pixies, loudQUIETloud does just fine. If you are interested in a thought-provoking, intelligent documentary, loudQUIETloud falls flat on its face. I knew almost nothing about the Pixies before watching loudQUIETloud, and now having seen it, I still feel as though I know nothing about them. Why did the Pixies breakup? The documentary cites 'creative differences and tension,' a generic answer that could probably be used for hundreds of bands. Why did the Pixies get back together? The documentary cites money and 'it just feeling right' as the reasons for the reunion—again, these reasons are painfully dull and provide none of the insight that is the purpose of a good documentary. What is the title's significance? Other than my own inference that loudQUIETloud refers to the band's path from popularity to obscurity and back to popularity, I am given no other clues as to what the title is meant to mean. Most importantly, the film fails to answer the question of why the Pixies were significant and influential, and left me angry and frustrated that I had spent 90 minutes on what, from my perspective, might as well have been some random garage band.For the hardcore Pixies fan, loudQUIETloud may be sufferable since it gives viewers ample face-time with the band members themselves. However, for those who don't particularly know or care about the Pixies already, loudQUIETloud is among the most hopelessly ineffective documentaries I have ever seen.