Movies Taste Metallic
Do you realize...that the definitive Flaming Lips documentary is currently showing at the Northwest Film Forum? Director Bradley Bessley followed the Lips for over a decade to make The Fearless Freaks, and somehow he had enough brain cells left to edit all his footage and put together a cohesive portrait of the band.
Beesley is a long-time Flaming Lips contributor, both as the director of photography on basically all of their music videos and as cinematographer for The Lips' long-delayed feature film Christmas on Mars, which will perhaps be out at some point this year (i.e., don't count on it). His relationship with Wayne Coyne and company allowed him to conduct intimate interviews, capture lots of live performances, and film backstage rock-star drug use---er, antics.
The Fearless Freaks allows you to spend ten years with the Flaming Lips in approximately 99 minutes. It's all there: the band's beginning as a psych-punk outfit, their pop breakthrough hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (still one of Seattlest's favorite karaoke songs), the sonically adventurous Zaireeka, the deserved accolades for The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and their subsequent transfiguration into graying-hair eccentric elderstatesmen of rock. Y'know, Wayne Coyne's just like your dad, except he's got great stage presence, as well as a penchant for fake blood and plushies.
There's no screenings tonight, but you can catch it at the NWFF Wednesday through next Tuesday, May 3, at 7pm and 9pm. And if you really really like it, you can pre-order the DVD, out May 17th.
