Review of Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) by Malcolm G — 31 Oct 2007

Saw it a few weeks back at the Dendy in Newtown. The director Julien Temple was there for a Q&A session at the end.

Big plusses for the archival interviews and live footage from the 101ers through the Clash and on to the Mescaleros, and the time given to his post-Clash work. Really excellent stuff.

Big minuses for the endless interviews with people nattering on about how deep he was, how much of a creative genius, how misunderstood, etc, etc. This really detracted from the film. Regardless of whether you think they are correct, one or two saying this would be fine, but it felt like we had a 20 minute stretch where that's all anybody said. When Bono showed up, I started to have my doubts, but then when David Lee Roth was the only critical voice, I knew we were in trouble.

DVD for this one, then you can rewind and watch the awesome live footage over and over, and skip past the pontificating masses.

The director actually commented in the session at the end that he had trouble getting anyone to say something negative, but that's no excuse for inflicting endless aging hippy's and/or punk's trying to be the most insightful person in the film.