Gigantic A Tale Of Two Johns

Year: 2003

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Schnack

Review

no it’s not a gay porno. it’s a documentary about they might be giants, the rock group. it tells their story pretty well. with biography type documentaries like this you have to expect a certain amount of over-stating the group’s importance. there was some of that here, but they (the filmmakers) managed to keep that to a minimum. good use of all sorts of source material – from live shows, to videos, to interviews with a wide variety of people. there were also a few sort of chapter stops in the film marked by famous actors reciting TMBG lyrics in a more serious way than you would hear in the song where the songs came from. there were also a couple scenes shot in a typical PBS type documentary style which focused on history (e.g. abraham lincoln and james polk) which actually provided segues into more information about the band (e.g. lincoln is the city where they grew up and they wrote a song about james polk). in other words it was an inventive and well-made documentary. i wasn’t all that familiar with the band to start out so i learned a lot, but i’m sure even big fans would enjoy the film and glean at least a few interesting tidbits of info. the band is a pretty geeky beatles/new wave/zappa,but they have a style that’s pretty original.