Triple Bill Mini Musings: Two Docs and a Flick...

Anvil! The Story of Anvil:
I missed the first twenty minutes when it was on one of those extra BBC channels and I was channel flicking, but having heard of it I was intrigued to see what-was-what. I ended up really getting sucked into it - from the disastrous European tour, to the personal woes and fights and through to the ending when I was fully cheering the band on.

It ended up striking quite a chord with me - being that the career paths of musicians and filmmakers are similar in so many ways, I'm sure you can understand why it was a powerful watch. Full of gut-wrenching worry, but punctuated with glimmers of hope and then a ruddy good knock out punch. A fascinating, involving documentary.

Love The Beast:
Again, I'd heard of it a while ago - during Eric Bana's interview on Top Gear a while back - and I already knew one crucial piece of information regarding the titular Ford Falcon, but even still it was an interesting watch. The fact that you can develop a meaningful relationship with a vehicle is a fascinating thing, and it made me think about the car I currently drive - it's the only car I've ever driven (aside from a summer I worked at a VW garage and ended up driving most of the company's range), and there is indeed a relationship there.

I do wish I had that 'under-the-bonnet' knowledge of cars and could tinker away on a straight forward vehicle on the driveway, but even still I have a history with the car. It's been around since 1996 - it ferried me to-and-from school, a couple of days after my 17th birthday I began learning how to drive in it, I passed my driving test in it, I've driven to field parties in it, I drove me and my mates to our Sixth Form leaver's do in it ... I experienced my first (and so far only) tyre blow-out in it, and I experienced my first (and so far only) roadside breakdown in it (the cam belt snapped and caused plenty of havoc - it was touch-and-go whether the car would go to the scrappage scheme or not), and I remember the time a blown truck tyre lunged from the darkness and gave me the fright of my life coming back from the cinema one night when I was 18 (fortunately the damage was limited to a fog light and we didn't crash).

In short - Bana's relationship with his "Beast", while more potent and long-running than that which I have with my car (which even appeared in I Am Zombie Man 2), the whole 'relationship with your car' thing really attached me to the film.

Varsity Blues:
I take it this flick is supposed to be a comedy, or at least part-comedy. I don't get - being British - all this stuff about American football, but it was a fun-enough distraction, even if the feel of the movie would shift sometimes wildly from drama to comedy to on-the-nose nudge-nudge-winkery.