PBS’s American Master series is airing the documentary Mel Brooks: Make a Noise, which reviews the career of master filmmaker Mel Brooks. In particular, we glimpse inside the making of such masterpieces as The Producers (one of my Greatest Movies of All Time), Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. We see clips from those movies and hear from Talking Heads (including Brook’s best friend Carl Reiner). But the best part of Make a Noise is hearing from Brooks himself. He’s personally delightful and remarkably clearheaded about what makes his films so funny.
Just watched Pearl Jam Twenty on the PBS series American Masters. It’sCameron Crowe’s (Almost Famous) documentary on the formation and rise of the band Pearl Jam. My initial test for any rock band documentary is whether it’s better than an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.
The first 43 minutes of Pearl Jam Twenty is pretty good. There’s the drug overdose death of the lead singer in Pearl Jam’s predecessor band (usually the fatal rock OD is AFTER the rise to stardom). There’s a wonderful video of an early performance where new lead singer Eddie Vedder unleashes the rage in his voice when angered by an overaggressive bouncer during a performance at a small club. Finally, playing before a festival crowd of 60,000 for the first time, Vedder ends a song, gazes across the masses and inhales, literally breathing in the sweet smell of success.
But then the documentary tails off, and there’s not much in the last hour except for Vedder’s ad lib at an awards show cracking up Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant backstage. If you’re a big Pearl Jam fan, then the last hour is probably worthwhile.
