Awesome; I Fuckin' Wrote That!

Bleary eyed on Saturday morning after a late night in London, I went to a screening of Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! This documentary is the result of handing out High-8 digital cameras to 50 fans to record The Beastie Boy’s Madison Square Garden gig on October 9^th 2004.

The screening was organised by the people behind the film magazine Little White Lies www.littlewhitelies.co.uk . Each issue’s cover features one film which informs the rest of the magazine’s visual and thematic style; the first ever issue last year featured The Life Aquatic. Issue 6 (due out June 3^rd) will feature this documentary as its cover film. This wasn’t any old screening. Our mission was to review the film in 50 words for publication in the next issue and there were 50 of us, which by unearthly coincidence is exactly the same number of fans who shot the film. Do you see what they’ve done there?

I know very little about The Beastie boys, but had heard of some of the people featured in the gig like ‘Money Mark’. I’m not sure how interesting watching someone else watching a concert can ever be (especially if you’re not into the music). I like the concept, but I have to admit I was fairly bored at times. The concert footage itself was far less interesting than some of the behind the scenes stuff, like a group of fans attempting to get past some bouncers into a restricted area and trying to break into the Beastie’s dressing room. The Beastie Boys in a lift with accompanying ‘lift’ music, cut between footage from the concert made a really funny contrast. And one guy took his camera to the bathroom with him and filmed himself peeing, which was for some reason the most entertaining footage in the whole film.

I’ll let you know my 50 words if they don’t get published, suffice to say that what interested me most was the surplus of Bs…

“What’s the time? It’s time to get ill’