DrePhili

This cleverly made documentary doesn't only depict an artist's impact on his audience, but uses their collective testimony as a vehicle for the artist's biography.

For a documentary, that's really only possible if the subject is highly regarded and genuine, and the feat of this movie alone proves Eminem is (and always has been) exactly that.

Nothing feels overstated or dramatized in this film either, meaning that even someone very unfamiliar with Eminem can appreciate his story and achievements. It's balanced, it's informative, it's even comical at times.

Frankly I was prepared for lame fan service at the start -- but I was pleasantly surprised at the accessibility and careful handling of this film. Eminem never pretended to be anything but himself, and this documentary reflects that beautifully.

It may be one of the best among all music documentaries, if for no other reason than its excellent narrative quality.

Don't get me wrong: music with a message like Devo's remains important for its subversive qualities, but this documentary doesn't exactly avoid backfiring with self-indulgence and potential hypocrisy.

Yes, mindless consumerism and toxic capitalism is bad, but the same society they lampoon has awarded them a career. They know this (the doc nods to it in the second half) and while they're by no means the most shameless paradox in music (looking at you, Rage Against The Machine), you still can't help but cringe at the bigger picture unfolding in front of you with this film: privileged Me Generation ultimately changed nothing with their complaining and became the system they hated at varying degrees.

Especially when, during one particular archived interview, the members basically concede their pleasure in profiting from their fans and justifying it by audience numbers... the same logic used by their corporate and government peers.

Another flaw: the lack of insight to their core musicality. Mostly the film likes to cover social and thematic aspects of Devo, but almost no insight is offered about their actual music, the equipment, the historical place they have during post-punk and onward.

Devo's place in pop culture shouldn't be undercut but it also shouldn't be overstated. Ethos aside, in the greater story of music, they are still mostly that one-hit wonder band that made "Whip It". This doc tries to walk the middle-ground but can't totally get away with what it's trying to do, and frankly it's on the fringes of a puff piece.

Far more interesting than recent Trainwreck episode "Real Project X" (in which many kids showed up to a birthday party and, for some reason, we know about it), this story involves a better variety of testimonies, with higher stakes considering the location, and a fairly intricate backstory where half-baked internet ideas go head-to-head with reality.

Social media dwellers are a parody of themselves at this point, and anyone with a couple decades will immediately roll their eyes at the immature elements of this doc, but it's still a fun study of people with lives that permit ideas like "let's storm a government base because aliens and party" before facing humility.

Not exactly something you do if you have priorities, but still hilarious to watch, like seeing Johnny Knoxville and pals invent idiotic stunts for your amusement. The silliness is balanced out by interviews with town locals, military, and other grown-ups who live in reality. When all the parts mix in the end, not much happens besides some partying, but thankfully it didn't go the other way resulting in tragedy.

I'm not sure it had to be split into 2 episodes. Yet I didn't feel like much time was wasted if viewed as a single film. It's ultimately a familiar lesson: reality wins against absurdist notions from the internet. But rarely do we see it done so uniquely, and at least a few people got a dance party out of it.