Change Your Image
grotonbridge
Reviews
Driver 23 (1999)
Way ahead of its time, timecapsule of the struggling metal scene
I love this documentary film, it's funny and poingant and really shows the best qualities of regionial storytelling that's both very specific to the area (Minneaoplis circa late 1990's) and universal in terms of how much it's about the human condition and about the foibles of musicians everywhere. Rumor has it that a bootleg VHS of this film played on repeat on tour busses for bands like Pearl Jam. I believe it! A total antidote for the bloated, manufactured rock stars of the MTV generation, this film (and its sequel, Atlas Moth!) is packed with stranger-than-fiction human comedy and down-to-earth realism. The painstaking process documents seven years in the life of the (late) Dan Cleveland, a Minneapolis-based rock guitarist/deliveryman and his band, Dark Horse. In spite of (or because of) a complex obsessive compulsive disorder, Dan is driven by an existential need to simply accomplish. An intense optimist, he meets all obstacles to his musical ambitions with uncanny determination, amazing perseverance, and strange "inventions" which visualize frustrations and make tangible the workings of his mind.
PS the film won 9 National/International Awards, was featured on the Sundance Channel, and was invited to the 2000 Whitney Biennial in NYC.
Love My Guts (2000)
Stan Brackhage -- "I've never seen anything quite like it"
Hello there! --- I sent this film to late filmmaker Stan Brackhage on the advice of a friend who said that Stan might like it's amalgamation of art film and romantic comedy. Brackhage called me about a month later at my home and was very enthusiastic and supportive, and sent me a great postcard thanking me for sending him the film, which he said played both as a narrative comedy and as an art film. I always thought this was the coolest accolade the film has received. --- E. Hammen (Director)