The trouble is, once you get past the historical information and chummy interviews, you have to put up with the inevitable risk of any ad-hoc jam session: It Might Get Boring.
It Might Get Loud (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:85
Fresh:66
Rotten:19
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: An affectionate tribute to rock's most distinctive instrument, It Might Get Loud is insightful and musically satisfying.
Rated: PG [See Full Rating] for mild thematic elements, brief language and smoking.
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Theatrical Release:Aug 14, 2009 Limited
Box Office: $1,234,300
Synopsis:
Who hasn't wanted to be a rock star, join a band or play electric guitar? Music resonates, moves and inspires us. Strummed through the fingers of The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White, somehow it...
Who hasn't wanted to be a rock star, join a band or play electric guitar? Music resonates, moves and inspires us. Strummed through the fingers of The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White, somehow it does more. Such is the premise of It Might Get Loud, a new documentary conceived by producer Thomas Tull.
It Might Get Loud isn't like any other rock'n roll documentary. Filmed through the eyes of three virtuosos from three different generations, audiences get up close and personal, discovering how a furniture upholsterer from Detroit, a studio musician and painter from London and a seventeen-year-old Dublin schoolboy, each used the electric guitar to develop their unique sound and rise to the pantheon of superstar. Rare discussions are provoked as we travel with Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White to influential locations of their pasts. Born from the experience is intimate access to the creative genesis of each legend, such as Link Wray's "Rumble’s" searing impression upon Jimmy Page, who surprises audiences with an impromptu air guitar performance. But that's only the beginning.
While each guitarist describes his own musical rebellion, a rock'n roll summit is being arranged. Set on an empty soundstage, the musicians come together, crank up the amps and play. They also share their influences, swap stories, and teach each other songs. During the summit Page’s double-neck guitar, The Edge’s array of effects pedals and White’s new mic, custom built into his guitar, go live. The musical journey is joined by visual grandeur too. We see the stone halls of Headley Grange where "Stairway to Heaven" was composed, visit a haunting Tennessee farmhouse where Jack White writes a song on-camera, and eavesdrop inside the dimly lit Dublin studio where The Edge lays down initial guitar tracks for U2’s forthcoming single. The images, like the stories, will linger in the mind long after the reverb fades.
It Might Get Loud might not affect how you play guitar, but it will change how you listen. The film is directed and produced by An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim, and produced by Thomas Tull, Lesley Chilcott and Peter Afterman.
Page --© Official Site
Starring: Jimmy Page, Edge, Jack White
Starring: Jimmy Page, Edge, Jack White
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Director: Davis Guggenheim
Producer: Thomas Tull, Lesley Chilcott, Peter Afterman, Davis Guggenheim
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
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Reviews for It Might Get Loud
If Guggenheim had let it play as is, without splicing in choppy life-story filler, then it might have been a rock doc for the ages.
Davis Guggenheim's contrived documentary is a largely unrewarding essay on the mystique of the ubiquitous electric guitar...
The sloppiness is almost in keeping with the experimental styles of guitar playing that are featured in the movie. A few bits of brilliance shine through the messier moments.
Rock fans and Guitar Heroes in the making will get a charge out of visiting where the happy accidents that put guitars into each man's hand happened. And the playing isn't bad, either. Loud. But good.
For guitar geeks, the sight of Page, Edge and White together in one room will be enough. Others, however, can't help but wish it might have gotten a little louder.
Somehow we got two rockin' documentaries about air guitar and even one about the electric car before we got a solid movie about the life of the electric guitar.
It Might Get Loud is never dry, never too technical, boasts fantastic concert footage -- and the soundtrack is killer.
Guitar god? Check. Sex god? Absolutely. Jimmy Page effortlessly exudes sex - at 65.
It does make you want to pull out some old records and listen with a new appreciation for certain sounds you once might have taken for granted.
You'll never see a more tactile expression of the intimacy between artists and their instruments than in Davis Guggenheim's elating It Might Get Loud.
The film's very title is a tease, however: It never gets all that loud, and you might doze off after 30 minutes of watching this unwieldy power trio.
...isn't just some vanity piece for boomer rock fans...It asks how music gets made, and occasionally why.
A spectacular valentine to the gale force rush of music appreciation. Loud is contagious fun, informative and inspirational. Multiply the bliss by 1000 if you happen to be a fan of any of these men.
[A] sideways glance at the electric guitar by way of profiling three generations of guitarists: Jack White of The White Stripes, the Edge of U2, and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin.
While that sounds like a fantasy for rock aficionados, the scenes lack dramatic tension or cinematic enlightenment. It just kind of happens, and then the all-star jam fades to black, leaving few remnants of the filmmakers' initial intentions.
The multigenerational threesome gathers in a spacious but cluttered studio to swap riffs, war stories, tips and inspirations.
Davis Guggenheim's documentary hints at high concept but doesn't follow through. Still, it entertains, in a messy, flailing way.
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