AWESOME; I FUCKIN' SHOT THAT! A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2006 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****)
It's been some 20 years since the Beastie Boys hit pay dirt with their critically acclaimed and best-selling debut "License to Ill" ("the one with the plane on the cover") but the 'Boys are back in town with a new concert film under their borscht belts, the unprintably titled "Awesome; I ... Shot That!" (expletive deleted!).
To credit the Beasties exclusively for this 90-minute record of their sold-out Madison Square Garden show on October 9, 2004 would only be half the story, however. Certainly punk-turned-rapper Adam Yauch, credited here, as he often is, as Nathanial Hörnblowér, retains sole directorial credit but the live performance is unique in so much as it proved to be a bold experiment in the (film) making. Hi8 video cameras were handed out to 50 intrepid (not to mention strategically-seated) audience members with the simple--and single--goal: "enjoy yourselves but no matter what, just keep shooting!"
"Awesome; I ... Shot That!" is the sum total, the culmination, moreover the copulation of that disparate handheld footage, a surprisingly vivid and vibrant accounting of Yauch and fellow Beasties Adam Horovitz and Mike D doing their on-stage thing, with Mix Master Mike laying down the grooves, plus a brief appearance by Doug E. Fresh as, well, Doug E. Fresh.
It's not all fuzzy, grainy, drunk and disorderly fan footage, however. There's some professional stuff mixed in here, along with behind-the-scenes footage of our 'Boys prepping, primping, and prancing melodic, riding muzak shotgun in a cramped elevator shaft, and dashing past concession stands flanked by beefy bodyguards on their way to and from an encore (or two).
What remains impressive about the film, other than the music (if you happen to like that sort of thing), is the attention to detail in the post-production. After all, with hours and hours of (no doubt extremely similar) footage in the can "Awesome; I ... Shot That!" really is all about the post-production, how Yauch and his team of technicians (especially editors Michael Boczon, Remi Gletsos, Phil Knowlton, and Neal Usatin) manage to synchronize a myriad of sounds and images into a coherent whole and then to take that whole one step further by layering on effects, both subtly and lavishly.
These additional techniques give the film a renewed and heightened "watchability"--while what we're seeing, mostly, is the Beasties, with their boundless energy, bounding about the 'Garden stage in green jumpsuits (pre-intermission) and red t-shirts (post- intermission), Yauch & Co. insist on making the look of each song-- "Root Down," "Shake Your Rump," "Brass Monkey"--decidedly different. And very cool.
From its opening, fish-eye lensed Manhattan cityscape to its closing number "Sabotage" ("dedicated" to George W. Bush), the Beastie Boys' "Awesome; I ... Shot That!" is a high-energy document to the power of performance and uncanned creativity, whether it be the infectious hip-hop happening then and there on the New York City stage or the dizzying cornucopia of collages composed after the fact in the editing suite.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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