PEARL JAM TWENTY Review

"Pearl Jam Twenty", the cleverly titled rock n' roll documentary by Cameron Crowe, made me feel a few different things, but mainly, it made me feel kind of old. That's not to say it's not good - it is in fact pretty solid. In two hours, Crowe tracks the twenty-year history of the stalwart Seattle grunge rock band, leaving no stone unturned. As a longtime fan of rock-docs, I realized that this was the first time one had spanned such a sizable length of time that I was not only alive for, but a fully cognizant music fan the entire span.
I recall when the album "Ten" came out of nowhere during my earliest days of college, and was quickly followed by the grunge rock revolution that devoured all other popular music for a time. I confess, I did not get it. St. Louis (my town) didn't even have an alternative music radio station yet, but hipsters on campus were going on about newfangled bands like Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Soundgarden while I preferred to wander alone listening to my well-worn cassettes of Queen, the Beatles, and the Who. I was at a liberal arts university, but not particularly liberal. Coffee house culture was taking over everything, but I didn't drink coffee. Clinton-era flakiness was reigning supreme. And this angry grunge rock/"alternative" aesthetic seemed very at odds and hypocritical in the face of the fact that it was quickly becoming a million dollar industry unto itself. By 1995, for all this among other reasons, I was one jaded guy.

Today, almost none of the above is as true of me anymore, and Pearl Jam is now bordering on the kind of old-guy rock that I've always gravitated towards. So it seems that my college fish-out-of-water self would've and should've appreciated the raw, questioning, artful angst of the rising grunge hits, if only I'd gotten over myself just a little bit. Instead, I went as far as to make a grunge rock/sci-fi film that questioned the entire scene. But that's another story. In "Pearl Jam Twenty", legendary vocalist Eddie Vedder ages on-screen right along with us, going from youthful boyishness circa 1990 to the appropriately grizzled dude he is today. So at least I'm not alone in that, heh heh.

In true Cameron Crowe fashion, the film utilizes pop culture pastiche in its purest, wide-eyed literal form. Clips of everything from Spinal Tap to David Lynch punctuate all manner of archival footage of our hero band, and others. The editing is snappy, often amusing. They've even got vintage "Wheel of Fortune" footage, for crying out loud. This is one impressive assemblage. And in that, we see that Pearl Jam (and their contemporaries), like Crowe, harbor a deep, loving reverence for all things classic rock, evoking the unruly greatness of Who at every opportunity. Vedder is even seen tearing up a few tambourines with "Baba O'Riley" during another recent documentary that's in many ways the opposite of this one, "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop". While that film chronicles an uncharacteristically angry chapter in the career of an otherwise upbeat and wacky showman (O'Brien), and bears a certain unease for the duration, "Twenty", although it's subject is one rife with angst and aggression, harbors far too much of Crowe's gee-whiz adoration for that aspect to ever truly take over. And the film is better for it.

Although I have little true emotional attachment to the work of Pearl Jam, I am a fan of Cameron Crowe's work, and am thrilled to see him finally return to the cinema world in such a big way this year. (Besides this, there's another music doc featuring Elton John, and the upcoming narrative feature "We Bought A Zoo".) The fact that the filmmaker is clearly a friend of the members of Pearl Jam only enriches this piece rather than compromising it, a likely outcome in lesser hands. If the film falls a little short, it's in the pacing department. The late 1990s popularity decompression of the band seems to meander on screen, even as they wage war with concert promoter Ticketmaster. On the flip side, important facets of the band, such as their political activism, is relegated to a glorified montage late in the game. But it's all no matter - the good spirit of the thing wins out, as Crowe and company emotionally steer us down various detours of history via memory lane. They even provide reasonable explanations to the grunge rock naysayers of back in the day.

If you're any kind of rock music fan at all, you know of the sheer importance of Pearl Jam, as well as their continuing stature as they refuse to slip into cultural irrelevance by becoming a lazy retro act. Sheesh, the fact that they even qualify at becoming a lazy retro act is again making me feel old. But honestly, I'm still not as old as Cameron Crowe, someone who dug this scene all along, and is thankfully back in the picture himself so that he can share it with us.

- Jim Tudor