Patrick Sisson - Writer, Journalist, Cultural Documentarian, Music Lover

PATRICK SISSON

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Friday Night Lights

Movie Review
Playboy.com
October 2004
Rating: Three out of Four Bunnyheads

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In Texas, high school football isn’t just a varsity sport; it’s a way of life. Friday Night Lights, adapted from H.G. Bissinger’s 1990 best-seller, hits you with that concept like a maniacal middle line backer.

As the movie begins, a stunning montage – a truck kicking up dust on the dirt roads of Odessa, a mother scolding her son for forgetting his playbook and journalists mobbing high school football players – lets you know just how serious this town takes its team. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) is expected to win the state championship, mostly on the strength of cocky, multi-talented running back Boobie Miles (Derek Luke). When Boobie busts his knee and the team begins to slide, the town’s hopes are placed on the shoulders of shaky, withdrawn quarterback Mike Winchell (Lucas Black), self-critical tailback Don Billingsley (Garrett Hedlund) and third-string back Chris Comer (Lee Thompson Young). Squeaking into the playoffs after winning a coin toss, the team gels around Gaines’s grit and surges toward a championship showdown with the mammoth team from Dallas.

An uplifting sports saga that never resorts to cheap sentimentality, the story of the Permian Panthers’ 1988 dream season should become a classic. The realistic cinematography and soaring soundtrack by instrumental rockers Explosions in the Sky give it an energetic edge. More importantly, the stoic ending guarantees this powerful real-life story doesn’t fall prey to Hollywood hokum.

Tom Waits: Real Gone

CD Review
Playboy.com
October 2004
Rating: 3 of 4 Bunnyheads

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A Tom Waits album is like a rowdy juke joint take on Dante’s Inferno, brimming with more sinners than a tent revival preacher’s sermon. On Real Gone, Waits once again mines that dark territory most of us would rather forget, painting portraits of the weird and wretched. Using his gruff growl, he alternates between detailed character studies and narratives, explaining the inner workings of a guilty conscience (“Don’t Go Into That Barn”) or spinning a yarn about a twisted carnival (“Circus”) with equal ease. Musically, this album alters his usual formula, forgoing keyboards and instead surrounding Waits’s voice with stripped-down stringed instruments. While that leaves some sections sounding bare and skeletal, most of the album is a nice blend of sinewy string lines and electrified howls that allow the storyteller to take center stage.

Green Day: American Idiot

CD Review
Playboy.com
September 2004
Rating: 3 of 4 Bunnyheads

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The idea of these seminal ’90 pop-punkers making a concept album might sound like a big pile of Dookie, but Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool’s song cycle about growing up suburban is more dramatic than you might expect. Broken up into a dozen songs, the album demonstrates Green Day’s musical maturity, opting for a more restrained sound than many of the rock operas of the past. There are plenty of catchy hooks, like the riff from the current events-critiquing “Holiday,” and Billie Joe makes some pointed observations about alienation and angst without falling back on cookie-cutter punk-pop material — the eastern-tinged opener to “Extraordinary Girl” comes out of nowhere. American Idiot, a solid attempt at addressing middle class bullshit and the pains of Ritalin-popping teens, is much more innovative than anything attempted by their SoCal contemporaries. But like most thing set in the burbs — and this album contains plenty of 7-11 references — it starts to get boring and predictable over time.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

Movie Review
Playboy.com
July 2004
Rating: 3 of 4 Bunnyheads

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As the world’s biggest metal band, Metallica has endured it’s share of Hollywood moments – the death of bassist Cliff Burton in a bus accident, the bizarre on-stage pyrotechnic accident that left lead singer James Hatfield burned and battered and a series of alcohol-soaked world tours. All this fuels the documentary Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a chronicle of the band’s successful effort to stave off a breakup by way of group therapy. Instead of becoming a promotional tool and self-serving rockumentary, this unguarded documentary takes an honest and often uncomfortable look at the personalities, ego trips and group dynamics, elevating itself into an epic character study.

When the film begins in 2001, Metallica is in dire straits as the members start to record the album that eventually becomes St. Anger. Sick of years of abuse that stemmed from his role as Burton’s replacement, bassist Jason Newsted quits the group. As therapy begins, Hetfield, angry with drummer and anti-Napster crusader Lars Ulrich’s attitude, storms off, leaves for rehab and mysteriously disappears for months. The remainder of the movie shows the group slowly coming together as they deal with guilt, frayed relationships (the painful confession of ex-guitarist Dave Mustaine in incredible) and what Hetfield calls the “bigness of Metallica.” Their personal fortunes are immense –- guitarist Kirk Hammett chills on his huge ranch and Lars Ulrich cheers as Christie’s auctions off his multimillion-dollar art collection — and point to the surreal lives they all lead. But it’s the uncensored insights into each band member’s psyche -– like Ulrich’s discussions with his father and the behind-the-scenes journey from near-disaster to the album’s release -– that makes this more than a feature-length Behind the Music.

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