SOME KIND OF MONSTER (half)

Jessica Hopper — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 01:17:11 +0000

Jesus, how long is Some Kind of Monster? We are almost two hours in and it feels like, in terms of the dramatic arc, we are not even really near the end, though they are 621 days or so into making their awful record. I think it might get finished tonight. Maybe. If my time is feeling of especially little value. The main revelations so far is that I did not expect Lars Ulrich to be such a Euro aesthete. When he decides to move on from collecting art, more into serious fatherhood, and sell the, like, 20 x 15 foot Basquiat that his gorgeous children have likely put their gummy banana hands on, along with his fucking Rothkos and the rest of his modern collection–it’s kind of shocking. Post-Napster you really think of him as a selfish idiot. He’s flying against the stereotype of metal drummers. Though more interesting than this movie is Lars Ulrich’s wiki biography. His amazing dad, who, if Gandalf were a Russian Doll, he would be the second medium doll inside the other doll, was a tennis pro and tells him St. Anger is trash. And he’s like 74 and Danish. Lars Ulrich’s step-dad, not featured, is jazz great Dexter Gordon. Someone make a movie about that, it is surely far more fascinating than James Hetfield’s evolution from actively alcoholic asshole to sober, self-centered baby. James Hetfield, who shortly before he entered rehab, took a vacation by himself to Russia for two weeks to go shoot a fresh-from hibernation bear and get drunk in a tent with his guides, missing his sons first birthday. He shot the bear to shoot it. It’s so full of shit after hibernation that it’s toxic and you do nothing with it.
Him and Keith Richards should start a shitty-parenting/animal-hating MeetUp.
ANYHOW.
Rockstars being dicks is really no great shocker, and yet, still I find a way to be shocked. Also, I wuld like to watch, perhaps, a short documentary on Kirk Hammett, who is sensitive and soft spoken and the only decent part of the band. He makes “who farted?” face when he gets upset, and likes to spend his time on his ranch, riding his horses. I wanna know what he does in his spare time. I imagine him spending hours brushing his ponies manes. The best stuff in this whole epic is what they barely show us: producer Bob Rock’s hairstyle. He looks like an old Ken, but with Barbie’s hair. Papa Ulrich and his walking stick and no bullshit. Kirk’s horsey estate and endless collection of the ugliest shirts you have ever seen–even ugly for the 90s–in the nineties when hard rock guys were wearing tank tops and open hawaain shirts, he next levels it with linen vacation wear. Hammett is a pig for casual separates and cruise looks.

That’s what I want to see more of.

metallica – I SAW THAT

SOME KIND OF MONSTER (half)