It was pretty refreshing to find this out, because I have to admit that as much as I love this film, I did find parts of it to be a little bit too convenient. It goes along way as to describing how things came together, how the main cameraman hired for the film lived very close to the Kudlow home and was often over there in minutes to capture stuff on film. First off, there is a full commentary available for the whole movie done by Gervasi, Kudlow and Reiner that is both funny as well as very informative about the actual making of the flick. The DVD has some really cool bonus features included that make picking it up even more desirable. And now that it is available on DVD as well, I really think that everyone that reads Hellbound.ca needs to get the fuck off their ass and go out and at least rent this for a night and watch it (although I think you’d be better off buying it even if you thought that Speed Of Sound or Plugged In Permanent weren’t worth their weight, har har). The bottom line is that even if you are not an Anvil fan – or a metal fan – or even a music fan – that Anvil: The Story of Anvil is such a compelling, amazing film that you don’t need to know anything about these dudes going into it to absolutely get sucked into it. I knew that when I went to cover the Toronto debut of it at the 2008 Hot Docs Film Festival for Metal Maniacs and witnessed a sold out Winter Garden Theatre – rammed full with more movie critics and fans than metal heads – give the film a standing ovation upon its completion. I could wax poetic about this film for at least ten thousand words, as I really think that despite what some naysayers may think, it is a real genius piece of film-making. It is both a sad and uplifting tale ripe with emotion that leaves the viewer entertained, metal fan or not. It’s a tale of passion and of having the drive to want to succeed no matter the cost, but even more than that it is the story of two close friends whose lives have become so intertwined since their chance meeting as teenagers that they have a brotherly bond which has made them even closer and more determined than most true siblings could ever hope to be. Gervasi and his crew did an amazing job following the Toronto based band through nearly two years in time which saw Lips turn 50, the band partake in a gruelling 40+ day tour of Europe that most upstart bands would never have the fucking balls to continue on with till completion, record their thirteenth album and then try to find a major label to release it before going and doing it themselves. Taking all of this into consideration makes the magnitude of the impact that this film has made even that much more impressive. The days of major interviews on the band anywhere outside of the most devoted underground metal magazines were unfortunately and sadly almost non-existent their albums were no longer stocked or distributed in the wide channels that their early Attic Records releases were. I can admit from personal experience as a metal writer that has been working for both Canadian and international publications since 1995 that any mention of the band to editors for anything other than an album review was immediately shot down in flames. While the band has always been active in the metal underground in a consistent way since approximately 1981, the days of the mainstream media paying any attention to the band were long gone. After all, Anvil weren’t exactly on the radar of the current music scene. Actually, I guess it would be better said that Gervasi knew there was little chance of a major studio backing the project, so he stuck his own neck out believing it was a story that needed to be told. Instead of going and getting major film studio backing for the film, Gervasi instead decided to finance the film himself. Realizing they were still together as an active group sometime around 2005, more than twenty years after their first encounter, he pitched the idea to Anvil’s central and longest standing members Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner, who formed the band under the name Lips back in 1977, to make a film about them documenting why he thought they were such a special band. Financed and produced by Sacha Gervasi, a motion picture screenwriter that has worked with the likes of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks amongst others, Gervasi has a history with the members of Anvil that goes back to first meeting them on their Metal On Metal 1982 UK tour, befriending them and then later roadie-ing for them on tour. One of the most discussed and praised rock and roll documentaries of the past few years has been Anvil: The Story of Anvil.
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