Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

The quality of Apple TV+'s catalog isn't very good, at least not yet, but honestly this needs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. The NYFF was perfect for it - Alice Tully Hall had an enormous screen and I'm sure the screen at the Damrosch Park showing was probably enormous too. Lincoln Center and Film Forum have already begun screening it, and it'll play for at least two full weekends.

As mentioned, Haynes emulated Warhol and others with multiple film reels playing on screen all at once. Those moments are packed with so many dense, moving visuals, it's pretty awesome to be immersed in it. I can't imagine a regular TV or a computer (much less an iPad) having the same charge, especially with the Velvets coming out of the built-in speakers.

Oh dip I just saw this is a playing at theater near me this wknd! Can't wait

yah seeing this in the theater specifically to avoid an apple+ sub lol

It's circulating on torrent sites too.
Copy I just saw was pretty pristine.
Has footage I haven't seen before .
I may need to rewatch cos I keep falling asleep in front of the tv at the moment then having to rewind things.
But very good.

Just watched this, a doc on Moe Tucker by Cam Forrester, and it was a lot better than I expected. For those who can't see the movie for a while.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26Y-qPglJQ0

"Much better than the trailer" I've been reliably informed... VU doc not Moe doc, that is.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/looneytunes/images/0/0b/Foghorn-Leghorn.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150112233827

"A VU doc, that is!"

Watching it now, absolutely gobsmacked by how great it is. Chaotic collage of images and footage, flashes, vibes, and voices talking all around the story. Absolutely worthy of its subject.

Agreed; one of the better music documentaries I’ve seen in years. The only disappointment for me — and it’s a minor point — was showing photos of the two reunions (‘90 and ‘93) without any context. It’s made clear that they did reunite, but they don’t say when or why (or why they broke up again just prior to the ‘93 US tour announcement).

The only disappointment -- a major one -- is how it occurred to no one to airbrush Reed's Poppy Bush Interzone mullet.

Q:

why they broke up again

A:

Reed's Poppy Bush Interzone mullet

otm

i watched this last night; extremely good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awXiIpiBp38

cale and eno recording Words for the Dying

(xp) I'll give you one guess who was responsible for them breaking up again.

(xp) I'll give you one guess who was responsible for them breaking up again.

I can see why the reunion wasn't included because how that reunion came to a pre-mature end is quite a shitty way of ending the band's story.

That mullet outlasted the Poppy Bush Interzone...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkxSWRknOL4

Lou on Leno in '94, an appearance initially booked as the Velvets to promote the live album.

got tix for tomorrow in a theater, totally stoked

It’s playing at the Charles in Baltimore this coming week

I can see why the reunion wasn't included because how that reunion came to a pre-mature end is quite a shitty way of ending the band's story.

― birdistheword, Saturday, October 16, 2021 12:50 PM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I knew it boiled down to "Lou was being a dick," but I didn't realize to what extent he was being a dick. I'd always seen the end of the '93 reunion portrayed as, "Cale wanted to do new songs, Lou didn't, and that was that." It definitely makes sense now that it wasn't addressed in the film; why end on a bitter note?

I did read somewhere -- and I can't remember where and can't find it -- that one point Reed and Cale agreed on in '93 was that any US tour would not include NYC. They felt the city hadn't supported them in the '60s, so why do what could be interpreted as a "homecoming" or "thank you" performance there in the '90s?

xp

I heard that reunion sped Sterling's end. Mistreatment adding to him already having the first signs of cancer anbd so on.

I think the New York rejection in the doc amounts to the Dom being sold to Dylan (Grossman?) to become the Balloon Farm so them no longer having a place to play. or did i miss further comment.
I do remember hearing/reading about them feeling rejected by NYC so making Boston a 2nd home but that is Uptight or something i read decades ago.

I haven’t read anything by Armond White in years, but I came across his review of the new doc. His take on it is it didn’t include enough about contracts, the VU should be contrasted with Billie Eilish, and constant reminders Todd Haynes went to an Ivy League School. https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/movie-review-the-velvet-underground-on-the-wrong-side-of-history/amp/

Reed wasn't disingeuous. He said in 1994 he was obstinate about wanting to produce any new material; Cale and the others said nay.

*disingenuous

I haven’t read anything by Armond White in years, but I came across his review of the new doc. His take on it is it didn’t include enough about contracts, the VU should be contrasted with Billie Eilish, and constant reminders Todd Haynes went to an Ivy League School.

I would avoid Armond White's movie reviews altogether. This has been written about to death elsewhere, but he was once an excellent film critic AND music critic (especially in the '80s - his comments in the Pazz & Jop poll were great, especially what he had to say about Paul Simon's Graceland). But for reasons unknown, he turned into a troll about a decade ago. Even Roger Ebert called him out as a troll in his own columns at the time. I'm not sure what happened because even while White was going off the rails, he seemed fine whenever I saw him with his own peers at public screenings. That was shortly before he was reprimanded and suspended (or kicked out?) of the NYFCC for being a complete dick at one of their awards functions. Since then he's become the film critic equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson for the National Review - I don't think anyone would have predicted that 30 years ago.

If you're here in NYC, if it's not sold out, go to Film Forum at the 7:50pm show tonight because both editors will be there for a Q&A. Both of them also edited Jim Jarmusch's Gimme Danger (his Stooges doc), but Affonso Gonçalves may be especially familiar because he's been one of the best film editors of the past decade, working not only on Todd Haynes (Carol, Mildred Pierce and Jim Jarmusch's films (Paterson, Only Lovers Left Alive, etc.) but quite a few other major films (Winter's Bone and Beasts of the Southern Wild) and TV shows (like the first season of True Detective).

https://filmforum.org/events/event/the-velvet-underground-qas-with-editors

I really love how it unspooled into chaos post Lou quitting, one of several ways the film says “fuck you” to linear cataloguing of events, which feels like one of its most Velvets qualities. I can get more information elsewhere but this feels like them. Haynes is so right and so committed to the evocation of their milieu. I loved how gay it was, too.

xp god the editing is EVERYTHING

constant reminders Todd Haynes went to an Ivy League School.

Oh no it's really sad that some fancy pant intellectual is the one who directed that this documentary about one of America's great unpretentious gut bustin' blue collar party bands

Lol, exactly.

i went to an ivy league school, and yet i am also one of america's great gut bustin' party bands. i am pretentious as all hell about it though, that's why i was accepted to the school

Oh no it's really sad that some fancy pant intellectual is the one who directed that this documentary about one of America's great unpretentious gut bustin' blue collar party bands

It was so moving to see this at the end of Haynes's film. And Mellencamp gave them their best interview!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW4YW3YiSWE

I heard that reunion sped Sterling's end. Mistreatment adding to him already having the first signs of cancer anbd so on.

I heard the opposite, that the first signs led to an initial consideration to do the reunion in the first place.

_Oh no it's really sad that some fancy pant intellectual is the one who directed that this documentary about one of America's great unpretentious gut bustin' blue collar party bands_

It was so moving to see this at the end of Haynes's film. And Mellencamp gave them their best interview!

📹

Oh no it's really sad that some fancy pant intellectual is the one who directed that this documentary about one of America's great unpretentious gut bustin' blue collar party bands

Hey there. Johhny's was a coal miner's son, can't get much more blue collar than that.

His grandmother was not too happy about that, apparently.

Disappointed this isn't opening in Toronto (like in Detroit, Chicago, and elsewhere). I don't have Apple TV.

That Armond White review is ridiculous.

Mellencamp was interviewed in the DeCurtis biography:

John Mellencamp, backstage at Farm Aid, hospitably asked Reed if there was anything he could do for him. "What do you think you could do for me?" snapped Reed.

"Lou," said Mellencamp, "it was just a pleasantry."

"Oh," shot Reed. "I was just wondering what the hell you thought you could do for me."

Lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lxAUIkLTJU

The Armond White review makes me think of Chuck Eddy on the Velvets: "they weren't so influential, your car mechanic has never heard of them".

Heh, a correct reply might be “Lou, you’re at Farm Aid. I am
Mister Farm Aid!”

"Tell me then, Mr. Farmaid, ever meet someone from Wyoming?"

You guys are reminding me of this classic exchange

i was so knocked out by the editing
it didnt feel like it was ~about~ the Velvets as much as it was ~of~ them

want to rewatch this for the entire rest of my life

Otm. In my mind now trying to construct a bad version of this that might have been, complete with the obligatory four kids from Ireland Bono soundbite.

even the way you have the Reed & Cale backstories running alongside each ogher leading to them meeting, such good movement & context, nothing boring or wasted

*other

and no one talking about them that didnt know them intimately or involved w them directly

MORE OF THIS PLZ

Yes to this last point

Think I may have read somewhere that Todd Haynes was surprised to learn that Jonathan Richman was such a big Velvets fan. Shocked, shocked, shocked and stunned even.