When You're Strange (2009)

This documentary about The Doors, nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, is pure heaven for any Doors fan. Narrated by Johnny Depp and directed by Tom DiCillo, it details the history of each member of the quartet with lots of archival footage, laced with what looks like new film of a bearded Jim Morrison look-alike in the California desert. Except that it's really Morrison, in clips from a movie called HWY: An American Pastoral (1969), which was cleaned up and shown on PBS in HD (thank you imdb message boards). DiCillo directed one of my all-time favorite movies, Living in Oblivion. I liked it so much that I wrote about it 13 years after seeing it, because after starting this blog I thought that I would write about every movie I had ever seen (ha! I have rated over 2,260 DVDs on netflix and left out lots. Feel free to befriend me on that site. My netflix name is, you guessed it, babetteflix. But, because I spend so much time in theatres, I don't watch DVDs very often and so am netflix's favorite customer, keeping my discs a long time before returning them, but paying the monthly fee). DiCillo was cinematographer (and had a cameo) on Jim Jarmusch's iconic Stranger Than Paradise (1984), among his other credits. He says in an interview that Paul Ferrara, who shot HWY, also shot most of the archival footage used in When You're Strange and that one sequence patched stills from one concert against music from another, among other things. But those facts should not lessen your enjoyment of this outstanding documentary. I particularly liked the discussions of the musical influences of the instrumentalists, John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek, all of whom survived after Morrison's untimely death in 1971 at age 27.

Anyway, listening to The Doors took me right back to Jim's living room in early 1967, listening to the first album with Steve, Connie, and him. We were sheltered midwestern teenagers, but we liked the music then, and I still love it now. I forgot to see the Val Kilmer-starring, Oliver Stone-directed The Doors (1991) on the big screen, but saw it a few years later, probably on a VHS videocassette. I didn't love it, but I imagine I would have in a dark theatre. It has a 57% on rottentomatoes while this one has 62%. Jack and I thought this was a great follow-up to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Both feature alternative music for the times in which they are set, and both are terrific.

You can buy the DVD of When You're Strange for immediate download on The Doors website or watch it streaming on netflix right now. It's rated R for sexual content, nudity, drug material, and bad language. Ya think?