The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks (Bradley Beesley, 2005)

The Flaming Lips: The Fearless Freaks (Bradley Beesley, 2005)
Rating: 4.8

Although I'm a fan of The Flaming Lips and own ten of their albums, I consider myself to be more casual than devout. I love music, but in general I'm not one to get caught up in celebritism or the so called "religiousness" of rock n' roll and can't fathom the insane fans who dress up and travel the country attending each and every show, nor am I really all that interested in the personal lives of celebrities. Unfortunately this film is best suited for the latter of the two degrees of fanhood. For the most part I found the film to be typical and boring music documentary fair, with extensive use of talking heads, album art, and archived concert footage, along with snippets from the music videos also directed by Bradley Beesley, which are the only things the film has to offer visually. The film also resorts to the mundane and derivative practice of having the musicians explain their uninteresting back stories about how the met, how the band formed as well as a namedropping session of major influences like Zappa and The Who. On top of this there are a couple of fairly corny scripted voice overs by the filmmaker himself. On the positive side I enjoyed the super 8 home video footage along with a few ideas presented by Wayne Coyne that were sort of grazed over such as his description of a nostalgic utopia consisting of hanging out with friends, listening to records, and smoking pot as well as his realization following his father's passing that death isn't romantic. Beesley also presents are very human portrait of the band from the love and support of their families, their humble upbringings, blue collar work ethic (Wayne worked at Long John Silvers for eleven years), and personal battles. The most intense and emotional sequence in the film takes place as Steven shoots up heroin while explaining his battle with drugs for the last five years. Friends and other band members describe their concerns and fears of the very real possibility of his sudden death. It's apparent the progression of The Flaming Lips from album to album is something to appreciate and they offer something unique and worth while in terms of sound and live performances, but when all is said and done their story is not interesting or poignant enough to captivate the general public's attention and the filmmaker doesn't present anything profound enough for cinephiles to take away from it, rather it's simply an enjoyable film for the more serious fan.