When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors

Written by Fantasma el Rey

Whether you’re a fan of The Doors, have a slight interest, or just like good films then When You’re Strange: A Film About The Doors is a must-see. This is the first feature documentary on The Doors and it's going to be hard to beat this one. Fast paced, informative, and entertaining in its 96-minute run time, When You’re Strange is seriously a joy and a thrill to see more than once.

Written and directed by Tom DiCillo and narrated by Johnny Depp, the film recounts the roller-coaster ride that was the five-year lifespan of The Doors. You may have read the books and seen the bio-pic, but this documentary truly brings to life the twisted, dark dream-like world of Jim Morrison and The Doors’ music. The documentary is put together using film from those hectic, exciting days, much of it never before seen which makes the tale told here even more enveloping. The real photos, footage, and audio of the stories and events that are legendary are all here.

Archival footage rolls from the get-go as we see how director DiCillo cleverly blends scenes from a film Jim Morrison made and Jim Ladd's breaking news of Morrison’s death. The great footage from the period never ends as we follow along as two UCLA Film School guys (Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek) get together with a jazz drummer (John Densmore) and a classically trained flamenco guitarist (Robby Krieger) to put poetry to music. Along the way people and places come and go, introduced to us through the classic film and photos, so we see them as they were in days past. We hear and see people and concerts that we have read about or only seen clips of before. Not only did the cameras follow the on-stage antics but the behind-the-scenes moments in the recording studio as well as slices of everyday life with family and friends. We are with them in conflict and closeness, times together and time apart, watching as the band pulls together to pull Jim back down to earth.

When You’re Strange is more than a documentary; it’s a doorway through time that allows you to take part on the adventure through the classic years of The Doors. DiCillo puts you there as it happened and lets you get a feel, no matter how slight, of what it must have been like in those days bordering creativity and madness, through the dizzying highs and scary crashes. Depp’s calm voice and love for the band only intensifies the ride and keeps you watching with wonder and delight as we watch the events unfold like it was only yesterday they took place or last night you had this dream of old friends and strange days. The music is picked to match the scene perfectly and brings the film to life that much more. It’s easy to see why so much hype and acclaim have been showered on this film.

The DVD has only one real bonus feature but it’s enough as it is an exclusive interview with Admiral George C. Morrison, USN (Ret.) Jim’s father, who has never discussed his son’s life on camera. A very interesting look at the man that we had only slightly heard about, and mostly negative things at that. Here we see a man that may be looking back and finally seeing what it is his son was trying to do as a performer and artist.

When You’re Strange is a reminder that at a time when sunshine and flowers were the order of the day The Doors where there to remind us that there is and always will be a dark side to the world. So sit back for an hour and half and let the drama, tragedy, comedy, and of course, the music of The Doors take over and race you down the highway on a voyage where one hopes the doors of perception will be cleansed and we can see the world as it is, infinite


Article first published as DVD Review: When You're Strange: A Film About The Doors on Blogcritics.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Written by Pollo Misterioso

Five years ago when someone said Pirates of the Caribbean the classic Disneyland ride came to mind, complete with “yo hos” and “dead men tell no tales.” Now with The Pirates of the Caribbean films, pirates have a whole new association, Captain Jack Sparrow has even been added to the Disney ride. Ridden too many times and a theme park attraction begins to lose its novelty, and like the ride that it takes its title from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the third and (hopefully) final installment the Pirates of the Caribbean films stretches stories and characters so thin, that its hard to remember why you loved it so much in the first place.

Both the writers of the film and I are under the impression that you have seen the previous two films, The Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, because if you have not then you are out of luck. In fact, if you have not seen them back-to-back, it is hard to pick up on all of the references used in the film. As a disclaimer, see the other two first, and with that aside, this is the final chapter to this trilogy.

The last that we left our favorite crew, Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) had just been brought back to life to help retrieve Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) who is in Davy Jones’ Locker, something like purgatory. We begin At World’s End with Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), William Turner (Orlando Bloom) and the rest of the crew trying to find a ship and map to Davy Jones’ Locker. The problem being that Jack must be brought back because he is one of the nine Pirate Lords that complete the Brethren Court. They must unite to fight against the East India Trading Co., which has been slowly taking over the seas with the control of Davy Jones.

The film is about freedom, the freedom of choice, of honor and of the self. Every character wants something different, but in the pirate world betrayal and backstabbing are a part of it, so it gives the themes a little twist. But this is where the problems lie; there is just too much going on in already very long movie.

Will Turner is trying to save his father, so that involves making plans with the British, with Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow. Jack wants The Black Pearl and that involves Davy Jones and his heart, the British and Turner. Davy Jones wants his heart so that he can control his actions and that involves the British and everyone else that is trying to get to it first. This isn’t even getting into Elizabeth’s or Captain Barbossa’s stories. This being my point—there is just too much plot to get through that it doesn’t impact the viewer when important things happen.

The film becomes exhausting on so many levels, but the visual effects are incredible; fantasy merging with reality never looked so good. The most interesting scenes occur in Davy Jones’ Locker, when Jack Sparrow goes crazy, but this strays from the linear story so director Gore Verbinski took some chances with it and it worked. Everything is filmed at such a grandiose scale that it leaves the viewer in awe. In fact, the characters even become larger than life, escaping more than just death, but immortality.

If you liked the first two films, then you should see this one. It picks up where the last one left off and leaves many questions unanswered, but that really isn’t the problem. It is entertaining, made to be a blockbuster hit. And for that, it delivers, giving you the thrill of the first time, but only the first time. But by the end of this movie, there are so many loose ends left to be tied that the fourth film is inevitable, if only anybody knew that three times was too much and I want to get off the ride.

This DVD comes with another disk of all the bonus features. For somebody interested in the making of this film, they will be very happy with some of the options. One of the more interesting features is “Keith and The Captain: On Set with Johnny Depp and The Rock Legend.” It is fun to watch the way that Johnny Depp and Keith Richards interact with one another on and off set. Also, for any CGI buffs, take a look at “Anatomy of a Scene: The Maelstrom” because here they show how the sets of the boats were created, the blue screens used and the time that went into just creating the last scene. Another interesting feature is “The Pirate Maestro: The Music of Hans Zimmer,” which goes into the recording studio to show how they approached this film score different than the previous two films.