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Too much of everything

Just perfect...

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Rock the Bells is an engaging and entertaining look behind the scenes at the Wu-Tang Clan's final performance with all the original members, including most infamously, Old Dirty Bastard. The film focuses mainly on the events leading up to the actual concert - the organization (or lack thereof), the backstage shenanigans, the chaos, etc. I was actually amazed by how chaotic the entire affair turned out to be, not to mention the complete ineptness of the promoter/organizer. Evidently it's something of a miracle that the concert occurred at all, or at least that no one was seriously injured, killed or otherwise bodily harmed. Between the equipment failures, security snafus, and understaffed/oversold conditions of the concert, this film makes for some serious edge-of-you-seat action.As for the music itself, the entire raison d'etre of this fiasco, it turns out to be largely disappointing. The highlight is most certainly rapper Supernatural's performance, wherein he proves that he can freestyle about anything; in this case, random items handed to him from the crowd. There's also some touching performance footage of him and his young son. As for the Wu-Tang Clan, sadly there's no performance footage to be seen, other than a brief clip at the end with voice-over narration. A tad disappointing to a Wu-Tang fan, but luckily the rest of the film makes up for the disappointing conclusion. All in all, 7 out of 10.

How has nobody mentioned the fact that this is a documentary about Wu-Tang concert, yet you never get to hear any of Wu-Tang's music or performance? The filmmakers didn't get the rights. So after two hours of waiting on edge and hoping for the concert to happen, you don't get to hear a single moment of the actual show! What a rip-off! The people who have reviewed this movie must really not care at all about Wu-Tang or know who they are. How can this film deserve rave reviews? A doc about a concert needs to have concert footage of the main act to deserve five stars. Rock The Bells was one of my most unsatisfying movie-going experiences in recent memory.

Masterful documentary.I saw Rock The Bells in Cardiff, Wales during our annual Film Festival and the crowd(who were a fairly mixed crowd of ages and cultural backgrounds) were eating it up. I love the movie and i can't wait for the DVD!!! Extremely exciting. Extremely funny. Extremely visceral- you can't help but empathise with Chang and Carlos's exasperation with the talent. Fascinating for anyone interested in concert promotion, the Wu-Tang or Alt-Hip-hop. Of all the reviews - i concur most with Craig Mathison's for The Age, Ausralia.One of the best movies i've seen this year.

Now here's a f*cking movie. Chang Weisberg is one part devoted hip hop fan, and three parts sh*t talking concert promoter, constantly working everyone, even/especially his sweet wife. And he's got this concert series in California called Rock the Bells. In 2004, Weisberg was organizing a big show in San Bernadino, and once he had a handful of Wu Tang MCs booked, he decided to attempt the impossible, and get all nine official members AND EVEN CAPPADONNA IF YOU CAN BELIEVE IT on the same show. The piecemeal way Weisberg went about it became a problem, actually. Despite the groundbreaking way the RZA had the first Wu Tang contract structured — everybody in the group was entirely free to sign solo deals with whatever label they chose — the RZA insists that all things Wu Tang Clan, the collective, go through him. But the RZA came on board, and even ODB was out of prison and seemingly ready and willing. He was of course a complete f*cking wreck, mind you. It's more affecting than you might even think, seeing ODB six months before his death. There's just nothing left of him here. Interestingly, they maintain the absolute fiction that ODB came up on welfare and whatnot. His dad worked for the Transit Authority, and his mom was a police dispatcher. That's solidly middle class. Why perpetrate, ODB? We would have loved you anyway.As we get closer to the date of the show, it starts to look less and less likely this is going to work at all. And the day of is just a complete sh*t storm. Now, unlike you, I foolishly bought Disciples of the 36 Chambers: Chapter 1, the baffling ordeal of a live album and DVD taken from the Rock the Bells performance. So I came into this movie knowing full well that the show went off; that Dirt just sits there on a monitor singing along to the tracks where he really shouldn't, looking like he'll be dead in a week instead of six months on, and then absolutely rips his verses; that there wasn't a riot despite Weisberg's sh*thead decisions to oversell and understaff the whole operation. But the movie is so incredibly tense that I started doubting all of that. Is this maybe a different concert? Wouldn't I know about it if the Wu had played a concert a couple summers ago that ended in a riot? I'd have heard that, right? But sh*t did not look good, friends. MC Supernatural looking out with absolute horror over the crowd when it looked like the Wu might not take the stage almost convinced me that I have some other record.On Supernat: come on, man. He gets his son on, and his ten year-old son's supposedly freestyle flow is absolutely unreal, and Supernat goes, "That's my son! And that's freestyle! He didn't write any of that! And I don't help him with it!" Sure, Supernat. Sure. As Stinkin' Rich said years ago, the line between the freestyle and the premeditated is blurry at best, and crossed more often than you might think. Moving on: aside from Supernatural, whose performance is entirely fine, and who is really very winning throughout the movie, you get performances from Dilated Peoples (not really to my taste, the Dilated Peoples); Chali 2na and DJ Numark (can I just say: for all that I never ever ever listen to my J5 records, their show — sans Cut Chemist, who I believe is now just plain out — at the Kraut in Toronto a couple years ago was fantastic); Eydea and Abilities (hilarity ensues when Abilities' set-ending turntabalism just . . . won't . . . end . . .); the always entertaining Redman; and Sage Francis. I've never seen Sage live, because he didn't once come to Toronto in my five years there, but he came to Halifax in that time, and my brother saw him. I think it was at the Khyber. And he hated that show. Now, my brother has a legitimate beef with the Khyber that I don't necessarily want to get into here, but which made me think maybe he was predisposed not to particularly enjoy his evening there. But I couldn't really account for not just his dislike of the Sage Francis show, but his absolute seething rage at the thing. Having seen Sage perform in Rock the Bells, I know understand completely. Don't get me wrong: I think Sage is great. A Healthy Distrust was a great record, one of my favorite from the year (last year?) that is was released. But never have I seen someone so bait and antagonize his own audience. I won't even try to describe it. It simply must be seen.Saw Rock The Bells at Atlantic Film Festival - from theratio dot organization