When You're Strange (2010)

One of my all time favorites.

Nice effects though.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I'm truly shocked and surprised by the overwhelming positive response this documentary has received. Most of the reviews on IMD seem to lavish so much praise on what ultimately is the most underwhelming documentary about a pivotal rock band I've ever seen! I attended a showing of this documentary at the Kabuki theater in San Francisco. Very few people were in attendance. My hopes were high as I love the music of the Doors and I was expecting a tremendously engaging piece of cinema that brings you into the Doors world with Jim Morrison at its center. Well, JM is at the center of this doc but the voice over narration is absolutely AWFUL and filled with clichés and contrivances that could only have come from the mouth of the director, Tom DeCillo, who frankly shares absolutely NOTHING new about Jim or the Doors that hasn't been written about oh, for the past 30 years or so! For the Doors novice, this documentary would hold some degree of attention, especially the excellent overall quality of the footage shown. But the amount of NEW footage is so paltry that you wonder what exactly the Doors had left in their vaults when they opened them up to DeCillo when he began making the documentary. There is NOTHING exciting to watch in this documentary. It was a COLOSSAL BORE! I'd say about 20 minutes into it, I was wondering why isn't this doc holding my attention anymore? Was it because this film has barely any actual recordings of Morrison being interviewed? What about recorded poetry? There's barely ANY. You get so little that you wonder exactly what made Morrison so unique and different from other entertainers of that time? Yes, there are snippets of silent concert footage that gives you barely a taste of his sexual energy on stage but it's not enough to hold your attention span for a 90 minute documentary. I was very upset after watching this film because I had such high hopes for it. But I realized that DeCillo was the WRONG man for this job. He did not bother to interview key figures in Jim's past, in particular, Babe, and other individuals who spent a good deal of time with Jim and are still alive.More importantly, again while the quality of the footage that is shown is good, it doesn't help make the story anymore exciting to watch. I was plain bored. And two girls in front of me watching and talking to their cell phones felt the same way! What a pity. This was a major lost opportunity to capture the Doors music, what it means, why it still resonates, and why we still find Jim Morrison so captivating. This documentary FAILED on so many counts that I wanted my money back after I went and saw it in the theater.Do yourself a favor. Don't see it. If you love the Doors, go listen to the music. That's where you'll find Jim Morrison and his poetry. Don't waste your money on a poorly constructed documentary.

This an absolute winner. It captures the excitement and challenge of Jim Morrison like no other film has done. There are all sorts of bits of information which I have not seen elsewhere, and the live extracts from film of the concerts are immediate and fascinating. No attempt is made to prettify or excuse the decline and fall of Jim Morrison, but justice is done to both the positive and the negative. I actually saw the Doors perform at the Roundhouse in London (on the same bill as Jefferson Airplane!) and this film does capture the real feel of a Doors concert. I was so affected when Jim died that I did a performance at Alexandra Palace of a poem that simply consisted of his name screamed over and over again. My throat was sore for days after.

Well, being a huge fan, knowing quite a lot of people in the Doors (full) circle and having been everywhere from Pere Lachaise to Rothdell Trail to Fairhaven Memorial... I have to say I did turn this on with a slight sense of anxiousness as to whether it would be another destruction of James Douglas Morrison's entire character as both the Oliver Stone horrorshow and the numerous vacuous "rockumentataries" have done.However, I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised in the main. If you're a hardcore Doors fan then despite the claims of previously unseen footage, you will have seen most of this, few people have been to Paris without bumping into the likes of Rainer Moddeman and other well connected superfans and blagging bootleg stuff and HWY and Feast of Friends have been pretty easy to secure for a long time now as have tapes of Critique etc. But, I was quite impressed with what Tom Dicillo did with the footage, not only was he sympathetic and judicious with it but he accented the narrative with it almost as good as Densmore accented anything Jim did. Clearly, for the eagle eyed, he used footage from other events to underscore a point on an entirely different event but that's just me being picky - ultimately, there is a finite amount of footage that could be trawled. He avoided a lot of the glaring pitfalls one could easily make in such a documentary - for example he didn't get too caught in the trap of juxtaposing events in the 60's with the events of the Doors (there was some of this but it was measured and relevant) and I thought Depp was okay with his voice-over although he was a little dour and the script was at times a little prescriptive and compartmentalised. I do however appreciate that the film has to be appeal to more than the hardcore afficianados and that a balance has to be struck so I think the film really does work well both for those who only have a loose interest in The Doors (or even those just interested in the era) and those more fanatical about The Doors.I know that Ray (at least) backed this film vocally which gives it credibility from the get go and I you have to give the guy credit for using only original footage. That said, this probably reduces the "filmmaking" to that of an editor so I don't want to be too gushing but still, give the guy his due, the end product is enjoyable, reasonably balanced, it maintained interest and it definitely had some nice touches in it which as I said derived from clever use of the stock material. It wasn't just the choice of footage; it was the more the way it was deployed and paced.Maybe if budget (or sensibilities) had allowed, the film could have encompassed some other original footage (or other stock footage even) for those Doors fans who want to learn more about the Doors landmarks - be it shots of Venice beach or Rue Beautreillis but what I am glad of is the fact that they stayed well away from including interviews with the usual crowd like Grace Slick etc. which I think would have corrupted the output.I'll watch it (and review it) sober again and see whether I feel the same but all in all, to quote the Velvet Menace himself, "pretty good, pretty good, pretty neat, pretty neat".

It's a documentary. But, the subject being the performing career of the doors, this documentary really becomes a biopic of James Morrison. I enjoyed the film as the former but less as the latter. DiCillo makes cursory investigative inroads into why Morrison might have been the 'shaman' his bandmates allegedly took him for. Yet the connect between the culture-quake through which Morrison lived and to which he contributed is not sufficiently well investigated.The editing isn't too bad, making use of all manner of media and rough cut footage to try and give an impression of time and dynamic, rather than just illustrating the story. Irritatingly, DiCillo uses the conceit of a Morrison lookalike, tearing up the desert in a Mustang, free from his celebrity, deathless like Elvis (his hero, also unexplored). It,s unnecessary and is symptomatic of the indulgence which has clouded DiCillo's judgement. 4/10