Question Of The Week: A Metal Movie For The Masses
The men of Metallica are achievers. So it make sense that they’d someday tackle the feature movie medium (especially after a successful theatrical run of their big documentary, Some Kind Of Monster). That someday is September 27 when Metallica: Through The Never hits the theater(s). Named for a song liked by no one, starring people either boring or unknown, and directed by a guy named Nimrod, the concert-film-with-a-storyline might be cool, but it’s kinda a waste of a movie. Well, it seems like a waste in light of how many better-than-iffy ideas exist for a large-scale metal movie with wide appeal. So for today’s Question Of The Week, please don your puffy director pants, seat yourself in a fancy cloth folding chair, and pompously bark your orders for a real metal movie for the masses.
Inspired by Metallica’s big fancy movie/concert film, we asked our staff:
Which feature-length metal movie would get you to the multiplex on opening night?
Boffo Lenny! Socko Lenny! Have a nice wknd!
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EMPEROR RHOMBUS
When it comes to heavy metal, I like fantasy like Brutal Legend, Black Metal, or Bastard!!!. So I’d get interested in an epic metal free-for-all. Like: “The thrashers of Bigfore have their light-hearted drunken lives interrupted by invading armies from Brohemia and Hipsteros, who want irony and mainstream acceptability to rule over all. Now, these speed demons must gather support from the frosty hills of Blashyrkh, the charnel fields of Brutalia, and the fetid swamps of Blackwater Park, to help them rid their land of this douchebag menace once and for all!” I’d watch that movie over and over, probably while super-duper high.
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SAMMY O’HAGAR
It would take a lot to get me out to a theater to see a metal film. The experience would be great, but very few theaters let me drink beer in my underwear and/or check to see if the Red Sox game is back from rain delay. However, Anaal Nathrakh’s psychological thriller/musical Hell Is Empty And All The Devils Are Here would get me out of the damn house. It is named after the band’s weakest album (well, pre-Vanitas weakest), but it can’t miss: The story involves a diamond heist, geopolitical tensions, and a golden amulet that can bring about the End of Days. None of that matters, though, as it’s basically 93 minutes of tortured screaming and people being doused in acid. That is the Anaal Nathrakh way, of course. In a perfect world, it would win 9 Oscars. Also, in a perfect world, this movie would actually exist.
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ANSO DF
I would love to be invisible and present for a lot of big timeline moments in metal history. It’d be fun to observe the creation of classic albums, the dissolution of awesome bands, and the formation of impactful relationships. But alas, Bruce Dickinson, manufacturer of secret military technology, is keeping under wraps his time travel-invisibility machine; for now I’ll settle for a dramatization of those riveting metal events. So I’d race to the cinema for a movie-length portrayal of Metallica’s first era! Borrowing its rhythm from Boogie Nights and Goodfellas, this sprawling bio-pic would put viewers inside the Metallica odyssey that started in L.A. and ended the night that Cliff Burton was killed. It won’t be an autobiography (like the Bones Brigade pic) or a gauzy after-school special (like Blow), just real and human. Like Metallica once was :)))
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