The Wolverine (review, plus bitching about how Hollywood portrays 'poor' people)

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 1.5 of 5 stars Average: 2.5 of 5 stars (Woozy canary)

Dustin: The Wolverine is an action/adventure comic book adaptation starring Hugh Jackman, Rila Fukushima, Hiroyuki Sanada and Atsuki Takeuchi. Like last week’s Only God Forgives, the latest X-Men movie is about a white douchebag in Asia.

What did you think of The Wolverine, Nick?

Nick: Ugh... the guy with the bow and arrow was sweet!

What did you like about The Wolverine?

Dustin: I mostly enjoyed it. I liked that The Wolverine’s immortality was taken away and he could no longer heal himself instantly. This gave the character limitations he didn't have before and added stakes to the story. I thought the movie blended The Wolverine’s brooding, dark countenance with the colorful and fun story effectively. I especially enjoyed the fight with yakuza above a speeding bullet train. However, I didn’t think it was as dramatically effective as recent superhero movies like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man or The Dark Knight. I also thought they could have done more with the Japanese setting. As it is, it was more of a fantasy world of what white people think Japan is like, rather than the real thing.

(For more fictional yakuza antics, check out my series, Yakuza Dynasty, available from Amazon Kindle.)

Nick: Completely agree with your last assessment. If one more Asian talked about, “When I was a little child, this happened to me...,” I was going to get up and leave the theater. They also did the cliche of having the foreign person speak quickly in their own language in anger then explain what they said to the main character who only speaks English. To go back to you liking the fact they took Logan’s healing powers away, then why didn't it seem to hurt him when he takes out his claws, which hurt him in previous films when he did have healing powers? Also the love story is sadly developed. They spend a day together and then are willing to die for each other? This film was made for people who already knew the story and could connect the dots on why these things are happening. To end the rant, I would like to point out how lame the villains turned out to be--Viper and a scene of Silver Samurai.

Dustin: Also, The Wolverine is supposed to be immortal, but he inexplicably looks 13 years older than he did in the first X-Man film. Talk about a plot hole!

What did you think of the casting? I didn’t much care for Rila Fukushima. I couldn’t understand her English at times (and I’m used to hearing Japanese Engrish), and I thought she looked like an alien wearing a wig.

Nick: The only casting that can be well regarded is Will Yun Lee as Harada (Bow-and-Arrow guy, Die Another Day) although his character ends up being a throwaway role. Fukushima's English problems didn't affect me considering how I probably wouldn't understand her in real life. Therefore, I kind of enjoyed that aspect of her, but at the same time her acting, as well with Svetlana Khodchenkova (as Viper) and Tao Okamoto (Mariko), who’s just a model, is just not very selling.

Dustin: I thought Atsuki Takeuchi as Girl In Background At Ueno Station #14 was perfect. (FULL DISCLOSER: At-chan is my sister-in-law).

Haruhiko Yamanouchi did a great job as Yashida. They did a good job making him look younger for the Nagasaki sequence and older for the rest of the film. It never looked cheesy like other attempts to make actors look younger, such as Snape in his flashback in the last Harry Potter movie.

Nick: Yamanouchi's character was one of the most entertaining parts, but he spends most of his time off screen, so he is not enjoyed for long.

Dustin: I was going to talk about the cultural inaccuracies in the movie, but what’s the point? Although there were a few, particularly regarding the ninjas, they weren't too offensive or insulting to the audience’s intelligence like the ABC Family mini-series Samurai Girl, so I’ll hold my peace. But if you do want to see an accurate portrayal of Japanese culture through the eyes of American characters (although ridiculously wealthy American characters), see Lost In Translation.

Nick: Was Scar Jo rich in that movie? She seemed a little “poor” to me, and by that I mean she is supposed to be poor but her apartment rocks and she looks incredibly good, but as in her character doesn't have money.

Dustin: The hotel room she stays in at the Park Hyatt Tokyo for several weeks in that movie probably costs $1000 a night, judging by the size of the room.

Note: $1 U.S. = 98 Japanese yen

Nick: That’s what I’m saying... Do they actually say who she is and how much money she makes? Her boyfriend was a photographer without any high profile gigs. Bill Murray is rich and famous, especially in Tokyo. I was watching Road Trip last night, and they have this incredible dorm room, but they're all broke and could never afford such a dorm with that square inchage. So they are "movie poor."

Dustin: Hollywood is terrible about that. The “poor” characters in movies usually live in two-storey homes, but drive slightly older-model cars with a dent on one side. One thing I loved about the movie Mud earlier this year is that it has characters who live shanties on the Mississippi River or utilitarian apartments. You believed these characters and where they came from.

Nick: Mud comes out on DVD on my birthday... Just a gift suggestion.

Dustin: I’m getting you a $5 gift card to McDonald’s.

Nick: NOOOOOO!!!

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Nick: I might be biased against The Wolverine because the story the film is based off of is one of my favorite comic book stories. It feels trivialized. He loses his powers, but yet seems just as capable without them, so it feels phony. The screenwriters can just write that he loses his powers, but have him slit open his chest and reach in and grab his heart, as well as a whole bunch of events that would kill someone without healing powers.

Only God Forgives

Dustin: 1.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 2.25 of 5 stars (Canary on life support)

Dustin: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives is a modern-day western set in Bangkok. Ryan Gosling is a drug dealer/Muay Thai manager who is forced to face off against a cop who enabled his brother to be killed. It’s the most depressing and unfunny movie set in Thailand since The Hangover Part II.

So what did you think of Only God Forgives, Nick?

Nick: It’s wonderful and disastrous. On one hand it was shot beautifully with an intriguing idea, but on the other hand it never came to a cohesive whole with all the characters and story wearing thin by the end.

Dustin: The shots were composed nicely, and that’s about the only good thing I can say about this movie. If the same story was in a poorly produced grindhouse flick with unapologetically bad acting, I might have liked it better. With the overproduced glossiness here, it falls flat.

Nick: It has a very interesting idea going on, which is anybody can do an evil or good deed, but that doesn’t necessarily make them evil or good. I want to watch the film again to see if they highlight this idea with the neon colors behind the characters.

Dustin: Watching this, the way the characters moved slowly and deliberately, I was reminded of a Sergio Leone western. I later read an interview with Refn in which he said, “From the beginning, I had the idea of a thriller produced as a western, all in the Far East, and with a modern cowboyhero.” But this movie failed in comparison to Leone’s films. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly looks lived-in, and you actually care about what’s happening.

Nick: All the characters were interesting, but there was no depth because they were never followed from one scene to another while making decisions. Every scene contained a different character who just appeared with the audience having no idea how they got to this particular scene. And since the film was so dark, I never knew where the characters were to begin with.

Did you like the Oedipus Complex theme?

Dustin: Not really. I thought it was half-baked. I figured that’s what they were going for in one of the first shots with Ryan Gosling and his mother, where she’s sitting on the edge of the bed and he’s standing in front of her in a blowjob-ready position. But I never got the feeling they were trying to develop this theme. I think Refn just thought, “I’ll throw in some Oedipal things. That’ll be fucked up.”

Nick: All the actions of Ryan Gosling’s character point towards his love of his mother. When his brother, his mom's favorite, gets killed, he has no intention of finding the killer because he was always jealous of the love the mother had for his brother, who even comments on how her dead son was more well-endowed than Gosling. Gosling will also not have sex with his very good-looking hooker, but instead watches her masturbate because he is in love with his mother and doesn't want to cheat on her.

Dustin: Perhaps the problem was the characters were all too stoic and the performances monotone. Looking back at After Earf, Will Smith’s performance was perfectly nuanced and naturalistic by comparison.

The biggest problem with this movie is that it was all very contrived. I mentioned above Leone’s films feel lived-in. This was clearly shot on location, but none of the locations looked natural. We saw the cop’s house, and everything was arranged neatly and had its place. There were no pictures of family on the desk, no ironing board left out, no generic wall calendar from his insurance agent. Same with Gosling’s apartment. The bed was made, no posters on the wall, nothing to give you an idea of who this person was.

Nick: Sometimes characters are supposed to act as “forces of nature,” and that’s fine, but to have every character be like that really drags the film down. As you say, none of the characters really live in our world, so it’s hard for us to grab on to a single character and care about them. In No Country for Old Men the audience hardly learns a thing about but Anton Chigurh, but we accept his character because the other characters in the film are real people living in our world with Chigurh acting as the force of nature, wrecking everyone’s lives while having no meaning or consequence.

Dustin: The characters here came off more as robots than “forces of nature.” No one reacts to the violence that’s unfolding in front of them. They just sit there perfectly still and silent. The director might say this was a stylistic decision, but I have a feeling he just didn't know how to direct them since he wasn't thinking much about what onlookers should be doing when he wrote the script, so he just said, “Sit there and do nothing. I’ll make up some explanation about how this is all supposed to be dreamlike. It’ll be great.”

Nick: Refn is certainly a style-over-substance kind of director. While it worked in films such as Valhalla Rising and Drive, it doesn't fulfill in Only God Forgives.

Dustin: The violence wasn't particularly believable either. People typically don’t just sit still and let you beat them up or cut into them. After getting in a fist fight with Gosling, the cop’s hands look pristine. I remember your roommate getting into a fist fight a few years back, and his knuckles were all busted up and swollen for weeks. Gosling also smashes a glass of whiskey in some guy’s face for no reason that wasn't set up earlier or explained later.

Nick: Its harsh how much you are attacking the realism in this film considering all the other films we’ve reviewed were much less realistic than Only God Forgives. From the beginning the film feels like a dream-state with the whole world only existing in the dark with various neon colors giving only glimpses of people’s faces. Attacking this film for not being realistic is kind of moot. I don’t think he was trying to make a coherent film, but one that was about style in movements, color and sound, and less about plot and character.

Dustin: Those other movies probably made it easier to suspend disbelief.

Nick: Do you think that’s because they were labeled as science fiction or some other genre so before you saw it you already expected it to be far from realistic?

Dustin: I don’t think those movies were simply advertised as a certain genre. They used established elements from their genres so the audience knew what to expect within the first few minutes, even if they went in fresh. I didn't know anything about this movie going in, but it had a noir look, and the opening boxing sequence was gritty and realistic, so I thought moments that strayed from that feel were somewhat jarring.

I think Refn just didn't realize hitting someone in the face hurts your hand more than it hurts the other person’s face, which is pretty common in movies.

Nick: That goes back to my force of nature argument. I made the assumption the detective had trained his entire life in martial arts, and the more you bloody your knuckles, the more it would take to really mess them up. This scene has been shown in films like Kill Bill, Volume 2 where she is hitting the wood and her hands hurt and she can’t hold chopsticks, but later on she can do it with no pain and not as much blood and bruises. “Force of nature” just implies that the detective was unstoppable, but we have no idea how he was created, but we are supposed to accept it because of the story. Though I’m not saying I think it should be accepted in this film, because I agree it was poorly done.

Dustin: Yeah, the movie never established he was a good fighter, just that he could use that sword of his. So I wouldn't know if he was trained by Pai Mei.

Nick: While the film is lacking in development of every kind, I really respect Refn and the fact that he is trying to tell a complicated story in a mainstream world. After every film I watch of his, I garner more respect. I saw him at Comic-Con at a panel with Guillermo del Toro, and listening to both of them talking about film made me feel all giddy inside. Like Pacific Rim, I enjoyed this film purely for its originality, but unlike Pacific Rim, I won’t recommend this, for I completely understand the hate it’s getting, and most people probably wouldn't like it. Though I can’t wait for Refn’s next film, whatever it may be.

Pacific Rim

Dustin: 4 of 5 stars Nick: 3 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: Pacific Rim pits giant alien monsters known as Kaiju (Japanese, lit. “Giant Monster of the Godzilla-Class or Larger”) against giant earth robots, known as Jaeger, driven by two pilots, or Jaeger masters (Jaegermeisters?).

What did you think of Pacific Rim, Nick?

Nick: Disappointed pretty much sums it up. The only thing that will stay in my mind a week after seeing this film was how much Idris Elba stood out as Stacker Pentecost.

Dustin: I have to disagree. I was impressed with the visuals, found a lot of fun elements, and enjoyed the character development. I liked that this was an original film, rather than a sequel or reboot of an established franchise.

Nick: Character development? The characters had sap-filled cliché sayings and just fought whenever in disagreement. What development was there? Who changed from when we first met them in the film?

Dustin: There were the two scientists with irreconcilable differences who finally managed to work together. The Australian son, who was an arrogant prick at the beginning, finally learned humility, but without doing a complete 180, which would have been unbelievable for his character.

I also liked the development of the relationship between Raleigh (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako (Rinko Kikuchi). It never turns into a romantic relationship, even though it looks like there may be a mutual attraction because Mako-chan stares at Raleigh when he has his shirt off, and he speaks Japanese, implying an Asian fetish. But we really only see them hug and almost touch hands in a distant shot. I liked that this film didn't have a love story in a cynical attempt to appeal to female audience members.

My favorite element was the Kaiju (which, coincidentally, is also the nickname of the yakuza boss, Kaizu Akira, in my upcoming novella, Antisocial Forces [Yakuza Dynasty, Part 4], available later this month from the Amazon Kindle store for the amazingly low price of $1.99... OK, I’m done plugging my shit). I thought the CGI was well done, and the scenes of them trampling through cities Godzilla-style were exciting. I would have liked even more of them, and more shots of them from a distance to give an appreciation of their scale.

Nick: The CGI was especially spectacular when robots or aliens were being thrown through the cities. Only complaint there is I would have enjoyed at least one fight scene that took place during daytime. The only day shots we got were short segments of the initial attacks, and that was when the CGI looked the best. When it was dark it was difficult to tell what was going on, and I wasn't sure what I was seeing half of the time. The editing during the action wasn't as bad as most of the summer blockbusters this year as I could at least somewhat tell what was happening.

Dustin: I would have liked more day fights too, not just for variety of shots, but, like you said, it can be hard to make out action in dark scenes. Especially when half of movie theaters these days are too lazy or incompetent to switch out the projector lenses from 3-D movies when they play 2-D movies, so the movie already looks about 50 percent darker.

Nick: I assume that the reasoning behind the night scenes is that it’s probably cheaper to CGI huge fight scenes with dark lighting rather than bright lighting.

Dustin: I wouldn't know. But how expensive can it be to have two actors in rubber suits staging a fight?

Nick: One thing that worked for me was the visuals when the pilots neural linked and we were given glimpses of their lives cut together with those of whomever they were neural linked with. The artistic direction there was wonderful with blacks and whites and shades of blue. Looked perty!

Dustin: I really liked the concept of the neural linking. When they said two minds would be controlling one Transformer, I was worried it would be too much like this stupid scene from NCIS:

Nick: I just watched that clip and I’m thankful I've never seen that show.

I try to notice everything, so one of the biggest disappointments to me was the character and the costume design. Charlie Day’s character had an expensive jacket, pants, glasses and shoes, yet his collared shirt and tie were pieces of shit. There were many more examples I have in the back of my mind, but one character which stood out to me and didn't get as much screen time as the he deserved was Hannibal (Ron Perlman). So much more could have been done with his character. Hannibal is a black market dealer of all things Kaiju.

Dustin: I also thought he wasn't given enough to do. I liked the idea of the Kaiju black market, much like the Kaizu black market in my third novella, The Black Market (Yakuza Dynasty, Part 3), which I’m practically giving away for $1.99 on the Amazon Kindle store. (OK, NOW I’m done.)

Nick: You whore!

Pacific Rim felt more like a sequel than I think a first installment should. Guillermo del Toro is one of my favorite directors, and he, with Peter Jackson, is one of the best at building worlds you wholly believe in. But I was left feeling like I was on the outside never getting a chance to really feel fear for this world he has concocted.

FUN FACT: Guillermo del Toro is Spanish for “Guillermo from the Bull.”

Nick: Anything else I want to say might be considered spoilers. When you have nifty looking Asians and Russians putting themselves into dangerous situations, but are never given names and/or things to do, chances are they will probably die. So chances are you won’t and shouldn't give a fuck.

Dustin: While I liked this movie overall, there were a couple things I didn't really like. One was the references to Independence Day, which sort of broke the fourth wall for me. Day’s character’s explanation of the aliens’ motive was almost word-for-word the same as the explanation given in Independence Day, which felt more like lazy writing than homage. And Idris Elba’s inspirational speech also felt too much like the president’s speech at the end of Independence Day.

The one other thing I didn't like was the casting of Hunnam. He isn't exactly the highest caliber actor, and he has such a generic, forgettably good-looking face that I actually forgot who he was supposed to be... several times. When we meet him again after the opening sequence, it took me awhile to realize he was the former Jaeger pilot, and there were a couple other times when I was like, “Is this a new character? Oh, it’s THAT guy.”

Nick: That would have more to do with the poor evolution of the plot than it would be poor Hunnam’s fault. The film should have set up its characters better before thrusting them into battle so you'd know who he was, and then you would know right away IT’S THAT GUY! Hunnam isn't given much to do on an emotional level in Pacific Rim, but in the film Green Street Hooligans he delivers an amazing performance.

Dustin: Would you recommend Pacific Rim?

Nick: To be honest it’s hard to make a recommendation considering I have never seen a film like Pacific Rim. In saying that, since I have never seen a film like it, I think it should be seen. This film will be most enjoyable to people who like the mecha anime genre, which is the only kind of anime I don’t enjoy. But as my friend pointed out, once he turned off his brain, he sure liked it a lot more.

Dustin: The others in the theater I saw it in definitely had their brains shut off, which I think was their default mode. As I was leaving the movie, I heard a jock-type behind me saying, “Dude, imagine if that really happened.”

Nick: Did you turn around and try to convince them that mechas were used in the War of 1812, but the government hid that fact? Of course, you would address them in a formal manner with “Bra”?

Dustin: No. I explained the movie was obviously an allegorical tale about the Pacific Theater in World War II, in which the Kaiju represented Japan (hence the Japanese name) and the Jaeger represented the atomic bomb as the consequences of taking down a Kaiju meant destroying a section of a city and causing an unacceptable number of civilian casualties.

Nick: What, Bra?

Dustin: I hope the Kaiju do wipe out humanity after all.

Despicable Me 2

Dustin: 3.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 3.5 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Nick: Gru and his Minions return in Despicable Me 2, but this time as heroes. I honestly didn't catch what they were trying to stop, some sort of purple goo that turns cute bunnies into giant purple bunnies that growl, but the lack of plot won’t hurt the enjoyment you will have while watching the film.

Dustin: I also had a hard time trying to figure out the villain’s plan. He wants to take over the world, but by using a chemical that turns living organisms into mindless monsters who aren't really under his control. It’s kind of like the underpants gnomes from South Park. A: Turn animals into purple monsters. B: ? C: Take over the world.

Nick: Nice. Since Robot Chicken and Family Guy have grown in popularity there has been a shift in not caring about showing how A gets to B and then how B gets to C. I was watching This Is 40 the other day, and it just goes from scene to scene making you laugh, but the scene before rarely sets up the scene after. The same can be said here. Every scene solely exists to make you laugh.

Dustin: I think that was my main problem with this film. It did have a plot and twists, but there were some random gags that didn't advance the story or develop character. They were just pointless asides. As fun as they were, they shouldn't have been included.

Nick: This film really did feel more like the proposed Minions spin-off than it did a sequel to Despicable Me.

Dustin: I haven’t seen the first film, so I didn't really get the Minions. I understood Gru (Steve Carell) was a bad guy who’s now good, and I didn't have trouble understanding what was going on. The Minions just didn't do much for me, but I could understand the movie makers’ intent was to spotlight them. Their antics were funny at times, but I thought they could also be irritating and got too many scenes to themselves.

Nick: The Minions were understated in the first film, so they worked. In this film they are front and center, but don’t carry the plot at all, so they go unused. In the first film they were also used for their antics, but the film didn't focus on them. Now we have the minions Dave and Stuart, who the film follows as much as Gru's girls, but, like the girls, lack depth. I hope for the Minions spin-off they are able to develop an actual story and not just have cute creatures, that are meant to sell toys, doing adorable things.

Dustin: It sounds like I might like the first film better. Not only did this spend too much time on the Minions, it also relied too heavily on slapstick humor, which young children will laugh at, but adults taking them to the movies will find tedious. I don’t think kids’ movies need lowest-common-denominator humor to appeal to kids. Toy Story didn't have much of that, but it was still enjoyable and humorous.

Nick: To be honest, I enjoyed this film as much as I did Despicable Me, but for different reasons entirely. Despicable Me 2 has more laughs, while the original has an endearing plot that had me fall for it. My biggest problem, and this might be considered nit-picking, with animated films outside of Pixar and Studio Ghibli is lack of attention to detail. In this film, when Gru turns off the light after saying goodnight to the kids, I looked for the switch and didn't see it. While in the first film they did what lazy filmmakers do and forgo spatial awareness like when Gru is about to be killed he jumps into an air vent yet there was no vent there in the scene before. Maybe that just annoys me because I grew up admiring Pixar and, especially, Studio Ghibli.

Dustin: I agree the animation isn't quite as good in non-Disney/Pixar films. But it was still good here. I saw it in 2-D, but I could tell what was supposed to be 3-D, and I imagine it probably looked good in 3-D too.

Nick: The animation looks wonderful, but depth of detail is appreciated.

Dustin: I liked the characters and the animation of the characters for the most part. Gru's daughters were cute and enjoyable, and the relationship between Gru and Lucy developed nicely as well.  The studio made a good choice to make the characters look cartoonish and not too realistic, so we never got the “uncanny valley” feeling of Polar Express.

Nick: The relationship between Gru and his daughters was fantastic in the first film, but in this one, at least to me, they felt more like Minions. His oldest daughter, Margo, is in love with a boy, his second oldest, Edith, is a ninja in training, and his youngest, Agnes, just loves cuddly things. They don’t have much depth in this film. It was funny to realize while watching the second film that they all have what one would assume are “old lady” names. While I enjoyed the development of Gru and Lucy’s love story, I didn't really enjoy Kristen Wiig's voice work as Lucy.

Illustrating the theme that change is difficult, the filmmakers had Gru do some minor evil things that probably brought out the biggest laughs from me. His constant dismissal of his neighbor who kept trying to set him up with her friends was a nice touch to show him assimilating to normal suburban life.

Dustin: One thing I appreciated about this film that would be lost on the child demographic is that this movie played out a bit like a spy/techno thriller. They used some visual cues from Bond films, such as the submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me, and the cat-stroking villain from You Only Live Twice (although it’s not a cat here). There was also an especially funny callback to Entrapment.

Nick: The Sean Connery film? Which scene are you referring to?

Dustin: When Gru and Lucy break into the Eduardo’s restaurant, she suspects there may be a laser-triggered alarm, like in Entrapment, and blows smoke around the room to reveal the lasers. Gru correctly tells her a Mexican restaurant isn't going to have a laser-triggered alarm system. She blows around the smoke anyway, revealing nothing. The steady, distant angle made it look even more ridiculous, and it played well.

Nick: Was there not a scene in Steve Carell’s Get Smart that did the same thing? I feel as if that scene has been done a lot before, though I agree that it plays well here.

Dustin: They might have parodied it in Get Smart, and paid tribute to Steve Carell’s other movie by parodying it here too, but the first time I saw it was in Entrapment.

Would you recommend this movie?

Nick: Most assuredly. Film is first and foremost about entertaining, and Despicable Me 2 delivers that, but maybe with too much focus on minor characters such as the Minions.

Dustin: I would recommend it for children. The kids in the audience laughed a lot more than I did, and they aren't so demanding on things like plot. But this is a film the parents will enjoy sitting through as well.

A Band Called Death

Dustin: 4.5 of 5 stars Nick: 3.5 of 5 stars Average: 4 of 5 stars (Live canary)

Dustin: A Band Called Death is a music documentary about how tough the world can be for artists who are before their time, and how tough it can be to stick by your brothers unconditionally.

We've never reviewed a documentary before. It feels like a different challenge somehow. But let’s go for it. What did you think of A Band Called Death?

Nick: It’s almost impossible not to compare it to last year’s Searching For Sugar Man, which is not only a story of finding great music that had been lost and rediscovered, but also a really well-filmed story. Comparing it to A Band Called Death shows how little the latter had to work with, what with the main driving force behind the band having passed away some time ago.

Dustin: For our readers who haven’t seen the documentary yet, it's about three brothers--David, Dannis and Bobby Hackney--who start a rock band in their parents’ house in Detroit called Death. Little did they know their sound would later be more accurately described as punk. This was in the early ‘70s, before the Ramones or the Sex Pistols. More than three decades after they recorded their rejected debut album, and several years after David, who was really the creative force of the band, passed away, they were finally discovered and are reaping the rewards of their work from decades before.

Do you think Death deserves to be mentioned in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll history?

Nick: I don’t think I’m the person to judge such an honor, but if a band like Public Enemy can be awarded a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then I’m really out of my league.

Dustin: I agree induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn't mean much anymore. With criteria used in the past few years, Death can definitely be inducted. But I am wondering whether the band can be considered relevant to music history. They were certainly doing punk before anyone else, but no one ever heard of them until a few years ago, so they couldn't have inspired later musicians. They might just be a footnote in music history. A band before its time.

Nick: If you didn't impact music for the next generation, then, in my opinion, you miss out on being historically significant. But having said that, it’s a great find and one that I found when Pitchfork reviewed it back in 2009. I was surprised I liked it, since it didn't sound like my type of music in the article.

Dustin: I found the story of these brothers very satisfying. After being rejected for the name of their band, Death, which was ironic given a decade later a band called Megadeth would become world famous, they made a misguided foray into Christian rock with a band called the 4th Movement. After that fell through, David returned to Detroit, where he never managed to self-actualize, and the other two brothers formed a reggae band. Years later, when David knew he was dying, he gave the Death master tapes to his brother and said, “Keep them safe. The world will come looking for these someday.” At the time it seemed like the rambling of a crazy person. (David was a little off--as a child he would pee into water guns and shoot it at his brothers, and he would make some unusual prank phone calls.) Later, the hipster son of one of the brothers hears a Death demo at an underground music party in San Francisco, calls his dad and discovers there was an entire album. It's a story of hard work eventually paying off, as well as a family sticking together.

How did you like the documentary overall?

Nick: The story and the music are good when read and heard, but the film really didn't bring anything extra to either. While the 3-D motion of the still pictures was a nice touch, they were often recycled, probably because of a lack of pictures of David. Without David, there is a huge and more interesting story missing. If this film, and this is a short film, was made for TV and had a running time between 30 minutes and one hour, I would have been more pleased. All the footage of the celebrity endorsements, like Detroit-native Kid Rock and Simian Records CEO Elijah Wood, and the footage of the Hackneys laughing and having a good time with family and neighbors don’t do much for the story of Death.

Dustin: I thought it was about the right length. I never felt like it lagged. I agree I would have liked David in this, but obviously that would be impossible. With that in mind, the band has reformed without David following the success of their discovery. They are touring and writing new music. On one hand, I can’t blame them. One of them works nights as a custodian at a local university. For someone whose dream is to be a musician, this is like winning the lottery, and they have every right to ride this for all it's worth. On the other hand, Death just can’t be the same without David, who wrote the songs and was the creative force driving the band.

It is obviously paying off though. Did you notice there was a new ramp at their mother’s house, as well as a new deck at one of the brothers’ houses?

Nick: No, didn't catch it.

Dustin: I like that the first thing this family does when they have money is buy a new deck. That's a sign of reaching the big time.

Nick: The way the film showed their generosity and love for everyone was a nice touch.

Dustin: Yeah, and it wasn't overdone. We learn they often had conflicts with David in private, but they stood firm in supporting him in public, even when he cost them a record deal by refusing to bend on the name Death. The family’s motto was, “Stand by your brother.”

Nick: The movie should have been called that. The story is more about family than it is necessarily about the band Death. The part when the children of the band make a cover band to showcase their parents' music was the best part of the film for me. How often do children admire their parents' music tastes and then replicate it?

Dustin: That was the most touching part for me too. My dream is for my own daughter, Lisa, to want to be just like her daddy and become a talentless Internet movie critic.

We talk a lot about the shaky cam. Pretty much in every review. Last week I said it is usually a half-assed attempt to look like a documentary. For the most part, this documentary was shot very steadily. I think we are seeing a transition to shaky cam in motion pictures and steady cam in documentaries.

Nick: That summation is pretty weak, guy. All we have reviewed are thriller/horror and action films, all of which have been exploiting techniques of cutting quickly and shaking the camera to make the action seem more intense. But dramas and comedies for the most part are doing the steady cam... for the most part.

Dustin: But I've seen the shaky cam in more dramas recently too, such as Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire, which was an otherwise good movie, and Jeff Who Lives At Home, which made me want to shoot myself.

Nick: Neither of those films could afford a steady cam.

Dustin: Would you recommend A Band Called Death?

Nick: Certainly. While it doesn't reach the emotional epitome or the visual storytelling of like-minded documentaries, it has a fascinating story about three brothers who would always have each others' back.

Dustin: I would wholeheartedly recommend it, especially to music lovers. You can rent it online or download it for a fee from abandcalleddeath.com. I would also recommend downloading Death’s free single, “Politicians In My Eyes,” from the site as well.

Nick: (Sniff) This review will make your little girl proud.