Pavements

Saw at the Chicago Film Fest October 2024. Had heard the film was "meta" and did not know what to expect...absolutely loved it. Imaginative, fun, insightful for big fans like myself and super well made! Not your standard procedural rock doc, in a good way. The film took a chance by layering a musical, a "fake" melodramatic biopic (starring Joe Keery in a hilarious and well played role), concert footage and real interview footage. Steve Malkmus and one of the producers gave a great Q and A after and it was fun to see Steve (seemingly) satisfied with the film! I hope this gets a broader theatrical release or at least a proper online release because it is an inventive, delightfully fresh music film and deserves to be seen!

'Pavements' is so indie, so DIY, so alternative, so non-mainstream, so unsigned, so self-produced, so underground, so small-scale, so grassroots, so self-released, so non-commercial, so artisianal, so boutique, so groundbreaking, so seminal, so cutting-edge, so innovative, so pioneering, so avant-garde, so trailblazing, so revolutionary, so trendsetting, so modern, so forward-thinking, so breakthrough, so radical...

...have I mentioned indie?...

...so off-the-cuff, so improvised, so unforced, so free-spirited, so autonomous, so catalytic, so foundational, so pathbreaking, so unconventional, so fresh...

...so indie you can only watch it on vinyl.

There are movies you enjoy and then there are movies that completely overwhelm you. Pavements did just that to me. I've been crying from the first second to the last, carried away by emotion, memory, and music. This is not just a documentary; it's a strange and beautiful hallucination about my all-time favorite band, Pavement, and about Stephen Joseph Malkmus, who's long been something between a musical idol and an emotional reference point for me.

The film is not made to convince new fans. It doesn't explain much, nor does it follow a clear linear narrative. It's messy, meta, ironic, sometimes even absurd-but deeply heartfelt. Some will adore it, others will detest it or simply not understand a thing. But for those of us who have carried Pavement in our veins since the '90s, it feels like a gift. A rare, chaotic, and unpredictable gift, just like the band itself.

I found it bold, innovative, and refreshingly different from typical rock docs. There's a museum (both real and surreal), there's a jukebox musical, and there's even a fake biopic that hilariously hits every cliché of the genre while still conveying the real drama behind the band's history. And in between, the music-always the music-guiding every emotional beat, every twist of nostalgia. When Circa 1762 started playing, I broke down. It's one of my favorite, most overlooked songs from their catalog, and hearing it in this context felt like a private message.

If I miss something, it's that Carrot Rope doesn't close the film. That song, that farewell disguised as a joke, would have been the perfect ending. But maybe that's also part of the spirit of Pavement: never giving the expected, always choosing the offbeat road.

Would I love for them to reunite for real, to tour again, to make a movie, to turn the museum into something permanent? Of course. But for now, this film is enough to make me cry like the first time I heard Gold Soundz. A kaleidoscopic, loving tribute to a band that changed my life-and continues to do so.

I like Pavement. They're great when they're good.

But unfortunately the effete snobbery surrounding every aspect of their art, is maddening.

And this film plays on every single bit of that snobbery.

They're without doubt a seminal band, an influencer. But please... this documentary could have been so much more than this. But it's just pure w***ery of the highest order.

I like Pavement. They're great when they're good.

But unfortunately the effete snobbery surrounding every aspect of their art, is maddening.

And this film plays on every single bit of that snobbery.

They're without doubt a seminal band, an influencer. But please... this documentary could have been so much more than this. But it's just pure w***ery of the highest order.

I'm not very good at sarcasm, wryness, or double entendre in general, and especially not when talking about music. It would be very fitting when talking about Pavement, but no, I won't even try.

I'll just say that I've loved the band since the mid-nineties, and I know most of their discography by heart, and I saw them live, and I absolutely loved the movie.

It has everything I hoped for. A lot of Pavement music. The surprisingly beautiful and sexy scenes from the stage musical. (Why is it surprising, actually? Pavement's music is sexy in a lot of ways, let's just admit it; the musical just brings it to the front, and it does it VERY tastefully.) Memories of the 1990s' MTV, but shown not in silly, nostalgic way, but as something that could be living and current. Layers upon layers of parody, and they all WORK. There's even some actual chronological narrative (although you probably shouldn't use this movie as a reference in Wikipedia).

Would I enjoy it so much if I weren't a fan of the band? Maybe not, but that's not the right question anyway. The right question is could you do something like this about any other 1990s band? Probably not. So I'd say that if you haven't done it already, it's worth listening to them so you could enjoy this brilliant documentary.

And yes, I think that "documentary" is a correct description. I'm not sure that it will get any Oscars this year, but it will likely be recognized as a milestone in documentary making some day later-just like Pavement's music eventually got what it deserved.