E-Mail This Article to a Friend DIG

Anton Newcombe, founder of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, wants no part of a corporate sellout, so he produces 11 albums independently. He also does a lot of drugs, engages the other band members in drunken, on-stage fist fights, and in general is an obnoxious megalomaniac whose premature contraction of Kurt Cobainitis guarantees that his huge talent, even genius (a retro fusion perhaps best described by the album title Her Satanic Majesty’s Second Request), will remain obscure, perhaps rediscovered long after he’s dead. His counterpart — and friend and rival — is Courtney Taylor-Taylor, head of the Dandy Warhols (if the Monkees modeled themselves after the Velvet Underground instead of the Beatles, they would be the Warhols). Narrating the film with an arch insouciance, Taylor-Taylor idolizes Newcombe’s brilliance but holds his road of excess in contempt. While the Massacre are getting busted by cops on the way to a gig in Homer, Georgia, French gendarmes politely return the dope they take from the Dandys during a triumphant European tour. Timoner began to document the two bands seven years ago in the expectation that there would be a story. And so there is, one that poses the question "Who is more successful, the defiant Massacre or the compromised Warhols?" Unfortunately, she doesn’t give us one complete song from either band (the Massacre’s performances invariably end in fistfights), so time will have to be the judge. (115 minutes)