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Bittersweet Motel

2000, Movie, NR, 84 mins

Bittersweet Motel: Review

BITTERSWEET MOTEL
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For the uninitiated, Phish 101: They're a four-man band of scruffy guys in their 30s — voluble guitarist Trey Anastasio, bass player Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman and keyboard player Page McConnell — who got together in 1984 and without benefit of blockbuster marketing, heavy radio play or glossy MTV exposure have amassed a fan base so devoted that an outdoor show can easily draw tens of thousands. Like the Grateful Dead, Phish specialize in rambling improvisation and have a hardcore group of followers who've made nomadic devotion into an alternative lifestyle. This documentary by Todd Phillips (a founder of the New York Underground Film Festival) should make Phish fans very happy for a number of reasons, not the least of them being that the band, which has always bucked conventional music industry wisdom and allowed — even encouraged — fans to audiotape shows, doesn't permit them to film; Phish hasn't even made a music video since 1994. But for the uninitiated, it's a mixed experience; not only does it reveal very little about the men behind the music (which may be just the way Phish, who produced the film, want it), it in no way captures the transfiguring concert experience devotees describe. Phillips followed Phish through two U.S. concerts and several European gigs, and his footage of the band's straightforward stage shows — colored lights, balloons, a little fog — is handsome and plentiful. But the music itself isn't anything special, a laid-back, perfectly pleasant mix of '70s-era rock, jazz, blues and a splash of classical and pop standards: The most memorable melodies in the film are covers, from Edgar Winter's hokey "Frankenstein" to Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra. Clearly Phish's appeal is fundamentally experiential, and the experience doesn't lend itself to being captured on film. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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