“The Metallica Movie”

— The guys who did this documentary also did the brilliant documentary My Brother’s Keeper – one of the most upsetting and personal and well-done documentaries I have ever seen in my life. They did a great job with this one as well. I mean – Metallica lets these guys into their most intimate moments – moments when they don’t come off looking all that great – so there had to be a lot of trust, at least initially. I was impressed.

— I am kind of in lust with Lars Ulrich. I completely related to his frustration throughout the movie. His teeth are messed up, and he’s chubby. I don’t care. He’s sexy.

— I was shocked to find that Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is actually a tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions. There’s an extremely personal scene between Mustaine, who was kicked out of Metallica – he sees it as the defining tragedy of his life, even though Megadeth was not exactly a failure. But still … to see where Metallica ended up, and to know that he could have been a part of that … was a bitter pill to swallow. But besides all of that – I just felt his pain. I appreciated his honesty.

— I am totally with Blind Cave Fish on the amusing sight of Robert Trujillo (their new bassist) sitting at the band’s round-table discussion. It’s kind of a visual joke, but here’s the set up:

Metallica finally admitted they needed to get a permanent bass player. They hold auditions. (All of this is filmed.) Robert Trujillo, of Suicidal Tendencies, comes in and plays. Like crazy. Like a DEMON. So then he is offered a spot in Metallica. Can you imagine?? Trujillo says at one point, during the job-offer conversation, “I can’t even speak right now.”

Then – their new album is finally finished (it had been recorded before they hired Trujillo), and they all sit around the table, having a post-mortem. Hetfield gets emotional (but I love it – these guys are all so macho, they don’t cry easily – they are tough, man – tough) – So Hetfield is holding back, but you can see him about to cry, he says something like, “I just don’t want this to end. I don’t want to let any of you go home right now.”

The discussion continues. The band is eating salmon. They talk about their “feelings”, Hetfield says the words “abandonment issues” – etc etc. Then there is a brief shot of Trujillo, listening. And the entire audience BURST into laughter at the shot.

Basically – what it looked like was: Trujillo is now in METALLICA, man!! The baddest metal band ever. These dudes are BAD, they all have TERRIBLE reputations, they’re BAD-ASSES!!! WHOO-HOO! And then at Trujillo’s first band-meeting, the members of Metallica all sit around with tears in their eyes, eating salmon and talking about “abandonment issues”.

It was hilarious, and awesome, and truthful.

— Lars Ulrich’s father has to be seen to be believed.

— The therapist, hired to come in and help the band get along, was … I know he is a charlatan to some degree, a racketeer … but a part of me felt so SORRY for him. His shirts were atrocious. There was one TOE-CURLINGLY AWFUL MOMENT when the band is in the studio, and they are hashing out some lyrics. The producer is there, Hetfield, Ulrich, Hammet – and Mr. Therapist. All 3 members of Metallica are scribbling stuff down on loose-leaf, trying to come up with a bad-ass rhyme to complete a verse. Then – there is a shot (oh my God, it was awful) of the therapist writing down HIS suggestion on a post-it and handing it to Hetfield. Oh my GOD YOU. DID. NOT. JUST. DO. THAT. These guys have sold millions and millions of albums, sir. They can figure out their own rhyme-schemes.

Later, and this got one of the biggest laughs – the 3 band members are discussing privately when to cut Phil (the therapist) loose. And Hetfield says, “I think Phil is under the impression that he is actually in the band.”

Really good movie, everyone. I highly recommend it. Very very interesting. Highly watchable. And dammit, I LOVE the concert shots – the masses of people all moving together, all jamming their heads back and forth – like members of some giant cult – a hypnotic scene.

Oh, and one last thing: — I have often thought to myself, when listening to their stuff: Someone taught Hetfield how to save his voice. Even though he is screaming – he is also screaming on tune – and he never seems to strain. It doesn’t hurt me to listen to him. In a weird way, it’s a trained voice.

I was very gratified to see him working with a vocal tape, made for him by a vocal coach, after Hetfield blew his voice out in the middle of recording the black album. The vocal coach told him how to warm up his voice before singing so he wouldn’t hurt himself.

I thought to myself: I knew it! I knew it!