Some kind of documentary...

Borrowed Some Kind of Monster from a student this week and sat down on Wednesday to enjoy it while Karlen was out running some errands.

Admittedly, the pacing was a little slow, but the movie was covering a two-year period in the lives of Metallica - the entire recording period of their newest cd: St. Anger - a rather eventful two-year period for the band. In this time, their lead singer, James Hetfield, went through a year of rehab for alcoholism, time when he barely saw his band mates and certainly wasn't recording anything. They hired a new bassist and dealt with some of the issues that had caused their previous bassist to leave the band. The band took a try at recording promos for a radio conglomerate - my guess being ClearChannel. And they paid a psychologist $40,000 a month to be at their beck and call, meeting with the full band at least once a week throughout the entire process.

The last part of this was by far the most interesting to me. In today's society, we think of affluent, yuppies (a term that begins to feel very dated to me as I approach the age of no longer looking down on yuppies but rather being closer to middle age and trying to avoid the stereotypes that come with that) as being in therapy, but the biggest hard metal band on the planet as instead shagging groupies and drinking themselves into a stupor before and during a concert. Metallica don't fit the stereotype. Lars collects multi-million-dollar works of art - seen here in an auction as he rids himself of a large collection - and the band feels that they need to work through some issues if theyh are to continue to record together, so they see a shrink.

It's really interesting to see the guys of Metallica discuss jealousies and emotions that they've kept bottled up from each other for years, slights and feelings that have eventually lead to festering wounds. In the end the band leaves themselves open and naked to their fans and to anyone who watches Monster. It's an imperfect look (too slow, as I mentioned) at an imperfect band doing everything they can to be a band, a whole, a group of friends making music - friends who occasionally need to remind themselves and each other of why they are together...because they are a hell of a band making some impressive music...

Admittedly, though, I greatly preferred their earlier stuff - Metallica and And Justice for All - to their newer, St. Anger.