Pearl Jam Twenty

Twenty years after Pearl Jam's debut album Ten took the music world by storm, Cameron Crowe directs this documentary that chronicles and celebrates the band's history, impact and longevity. Crowe starts way back in 1988 when guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament were part of Mother Love Bone, a band that were popular due to singer Andy Wood's charismatic personality and song writing talent. After Wood's overdose and untimely death, Gossard and Ament founded Pearl Jam, along with the hugely talented singer Eddie Vedder and lead guitarist Mike McCready. The band went on to be one of the most successful bands of the 90's, and were seen as the natural rivals of fellow 'grunge' band Nirvana.

Crowe's documentary is hugely detailed, combining the standard talking heads with old interview footage, home video, and concert footage. Crowe apparently worked his way through 12,000 hours of footage of the band for the film. It was well worth it, as we get to see rare, grainy footage of Wood's exciting performances with Mother Love Bone, as well as the extremely moving performances by Vedder and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell as part of Wood tribute group Temple of the Dog. The talking heads are no mere conduits that progress the film along, they are as informative and moving as the performances, as Vedder and Cornell, especially, open up and give tearful recollections.

It also covers the band's battle with ticket giant Ticketmaster, and how they objected to the fact that their fans were getting ripped off just to see a live band. It shows Pearl Jam as one of the few bands that remember their roots and are a dying breed. It was strange for me to watch this film, viewing the likes of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden as part of music history. I grew up with my old brother listening to the music, so I remember the whole 'grunge' craze quite well. I really only remember stripy shirts and long hair, but Pearl Jam Twenty reminded me of how good the music actually was. This is a must-see for fans of the band or the era, or for those enjoy an involving documentary. Crowe clearly knows his s**t (he was a journalist for Rolling Stone after all) and his passionate touch is all over it.

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I have been a fan on Pearl Jam for years. I was 18 when the Seattle scene broke, so Pearl Jam became the soundtrack of my young adult years.

I was a bit leery of this movie, as it could have really have turned me off the band depending on how it all went down. I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole movie. The crowd singing the song "Better Man", brought tears to my eyes. You really get an idea of how fast the band became huge, and the problems they had keeping their "art" rather than their business. I have gained a greater appreciation for this rock band, and it just made me a bigger fan

Simply put, Pearl Jam "10" one of the greatest rock records ever, and Pearl jam "20" one of the greatest rock movies ever

I have to admit I'm not what you will call a fanatical worshipper of Pearl Jam's music enough to compel me to watch what would be THE documentary this season with a single session, simultaneous screening around the world where PJ fans will likely already have made a beeline for. Instead, I'm a bigger fan of writer-director Cameron Crowe than the subject matter of his documentary (ok, so this sounds a little bit blasphemous), given that it's been years since we last saw a Cameron Crowe film hit the theatres, although that wait will soon be over by the end of this year with the release of We Bought a Zoo.

Pearl Jam 20 chronicles the beginnings of the band back in the year 1989 where Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard came together after the demise of their band Mother Love Bone, and like all successful bands that came before it, was subjected to recruiting and changing of members until the perfect chemistry was achieved, culminating with frontman Eddie Vedder, with his distinct growling voice, joining the band, and together put alternative grunge music on the radar of music everywhere. Sure there were many others in the same vein since the 90s was the era where this sound had taken the world by storm, with what would possibly be the largest rivals to Nirvana before Kurt Cobain's passing.

You can probably read a lot more details on the band from its Wikipage, and Cameron Crowe's film digs through large treasure troves of archival footage from television newsreels to more independent, off the cuff capture of the band's early years, that we get to witness the second earliest band performance ever and plenty of other home made videos that expectedly get pixelated for the big screen. Crowe's background as a music journalist being a tremendous factor in the crafting of this film, where in lesser hands would have been relegated to the standard talking heads interviews, and to stuff the film with chock full of music videos and live performances from the band's tours around the world.

Instead, Crowe provides the narration, and shares interesting nuggets of information through what would be a largely chronological format without overwhelmingly bombarding the audience with too much information. Being on close terms with all the band members and collaborators also allowed for unfettered access to more intimate and honest interview answers, with the utilizing of milestones in the band's career to timestamp the feature, including their courtroom lawsuit with Ticketmaster. But with everything crammed into two hours, expect some areas of focus to be skimmed through as Crowe paced his documentary at breakneck speed to cover as much ground as possible, mixing it up quite a bit with comedy, pathos, and allowing the many visuals both moving and static to breathe and tell a story.

It's about the capture of a phase of growing up, where looking around I see folks around my age group (or older) who had grown with the band in the 90s when we were in our teens where music played a large part in our lives, as we shift through the sands of time with the identification of many songs from the band's discography, where I didn't even realize that Daughter was supposed to be called Brother initially, and listening to Vedder actually sing it that way during a practice on the tour bus, is reason enough amongst others why fans just have to watch this, and perhaps reminisce the times where they had seen their idols perform on stage during one of the many concert tours done worldwide at the peak of their popularity.

And that is if a theatrical release gets secured soon, which I suspect would be the case given the sold out, one off screening. Watch for it!

PJ 20 is rich, smartly edited, brings incredible footage and tells interesting stories, but it should not receive 10 out of 10 for one big reason: it promises 20 years of history but only delivers 10. Obviously the first 10 were the formative years. However a lot happened during the latter decade which is barely touched by the film.

The nuance in a lot of segments is to be loved. But it is sort of tricky that the five of them never appear together in the present time interviews. It tells a lot about how this great band works and should have been further explored.

Overall though PJ 20 is a great film, specially for the initiated.

Pearl Jam Twenty (2011)

**** (out of 4)

Wonderful documentary from Cameron Crowe about the twenty years of Pearl Jam. Crowe talks about how he was living in Seattle when the entire grunge/alternative scene broke and from here on we see how the band came to be. Using interviews, archival footage and current concert footage, Crowe turns this into one of the better documentaries out there. We see the band starting out, rising to the top with the album Ten, taking on Ticketmaster, touring with Neil Young and then continue to try and make sure they stay true to themselves even when some of their fans started to question them. I was around 13 when the Seattle based rock really took off and I remember listening to Pearl Jam for a few years but then my music tastes started to change. I really haven't kept up with the band since then so one should keep that in mind as they read this but I thought the documentary was terrific. It really gave me a terrific idea of what the band is, who they wanted to be and it was great fun seeing their rise to fame and seeing how they almost broke up. I found Crowe's direction to be marvelous because a lot of times with these documentaries you have someone who doesn't know how to put all the footage together to make it entertaining. Concert footage is great. Interviews are great. Even television show clips are great. However, so many documentaries don't know how to put all the footage together but Crowe does a wonderful job and really delivers a film that even non-fans should enjoy. Even though I haven't followed the band in many years this documentary really made me want to rush out and buy their CDs and DVDs. I found the interviews to be extremely good and I liked the fact that Crowe didn't shy away from some of the darker moments in their twenty years. The documentary also covers some other groups from this Seattle era including the relationship between Pearl Jam and Nirvana. The suicide of Kurt Cobain is also covered and we get concert footage from the night of his death. Overall Crowe really has worked a mini miracle in bringing Pearl Jam's story to life. If someone like me enjoyed it so much I'm sure die-hard fans of the group will feel as if they're in Heaven.