Sorry to bump an old thread but I found this review of the film over on thisisthedaybreak.co.uk which I thought was absolutely brilliant 


The very last shot of the film (after the credits roll), in mawkish silhouette, tells you all you need to know about this project. Throughout, we see a series of people clamouring to prove their fan credentials, so much so that some will fashion their offspring on looking like a) a band member clone b) themself c) some Frankensteinish cross-breed of the two. Just check out that brain-dead father and son Elephant Stone exchange. At times, the moronic blind devotion knows no bounds - one man regales us with the tale he told his boss, that his father-in-law had suffered a heart attack, in order to get time off to attend the Warrington gig. I'm sure anyone tuning in who has lost a loved one to a heart attack is splitting their sides at that one, pal. A deputy head teacher (who looks as if he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown at having missed out on a Warrington wristband) tells the director that he offered a permanent job to a woman he works with in exchange for a pass for the gig (Is this how permanent teaching posts in schools are being allocated, seriously ?). When this offer was declined, he then tried to exchange his car (equally zany, but just as unsuccessful). Loitering about like a feckless Quasimodo, you are almost expecting him to bewail those immortal words, 'Why was I not made of stone like thee?'. This grating desperation to attain überfan status can easily be sourced back to the banter brothers behind the camera, Shane Meadows, and his sidekick, Mark Herbert. I swear, if I hear that 'I had a ticket and then I didn't' Spike Island acid trip anecdote one more time, I will, by the power of Grayskull, unleash Armageddon. The Stone Roses played dates shortly after Spike Island, including Belfast and Glasgow, and toured the length and breadth of the country on their Second Coming tour, yet Shane was still not in the area for any of these shows. Just how long did this acid trip last exactly ? That whole 'kissing a posh girl and hiding a sausage butty from her while Waterfall just so happens to be playing' shtick is just as suspect. Cranking up the hyperbole machine into overdrive, the director mused in October 2013: "Obviously I don't just like the Roses - I love the Roses . . . Anything new, one song, one chord would be enough. But a new album would be incredible. One more record would be like Christmas for the rest of our lives." What definition of Christmas are you working from here mister? With such a puppy dog disposition to the project, it is little wonder that the director is happy to film himself marvelling at a sandwich board with 'NEWIE' written on it, speculating about a new song that never actually materializes (and considering this fit for inclusion in the final edit). What emerges is a film of missed opportunities, as if Meadows had a backstage pass but squandered it drinking in the beer tent. You've been given unlimited access here, don't waste half the documentary doing a fucking fan survey. I am a Stone Roses fan. I am not a fan of Stone Roses fans. The culmination of his obsequiousness comes in Amsterdam, a cut to twitter reaction (and a Sun screengrab) to an event for which the director was given Access All Areas to film. NEWSFLASH: I don't give a rat's arse what scholesrandomtwitternumber has to say about this juncture of the tour. Note the desperation to play to the Mancunian gallery in the selection of tweets here, leading with a puerile quip about Kenny Dalglish. What is air ? And why in God's name is the Breaking Into Heaven intro playing at this point ? Is some trained chimp hitting shuffle on a Stone Roses playlist here ? What is this, amateur hour ? With all evidence suggesting that the director has just emerged from a lengthy spell in the hotel toilet, we are locked in on this rotund clown for a self-serving video diary. With all the faux distress he can muster, Meadows opens with this pearl of wisdom: "So last night was Amsterdam and obviously what happened, happened." No fucking shit, Sherlock. As I emphasize here in regard to retrospective eulogizing, some folks are trying just a little too hard to portray themselves as having been 'one of the faces' back in the day. These range from Shane 'robbed of my Spike Island experience' Meadows building up a Warrington warm-up gig in 2012 as "[my] Spike Island" (and also finding time to shoehorn in a "Hallelujah Moment" - hitting record on an iPhone, for the uninitiated) to flashback of an 11-year-old Bradley Wiggins witnessing some sort of Max Headroom televisual hijack in his living room. Why settle for just one disc of barrel-scraping random fandom when you can have two ? The director's insatiable quest to locate the flagship Roses fan floods over onto disc two, where a cocktail of inebriation and fake northern accents dominate a 'fan van' feature, the 'highlights' of which include two women who used to drum on their pencil cases to The Stone Roses, Nirvana and Green Day and here they are, fourteen years later, for this gig (Quite the enchanting story arc there). After a stream of wallies vacate the vehicle, another degenerate muses, "I know I'm getting deep, but was Elizabeth My Dear aimed at Elizabeth II or Elizabeth I ?". Everybody knows you never go full retard. You just went full retard. Elsewhere in the extras, we come to a try-hard fan living in perpetual fear that donning a tie might lead to accusations of a corporate sell-out, thus tarnishing forever his five seconds of film fame. Hold the fucking press folks, Simon skips Elizabeth My Dear ! The flow of the documentary is, at times, utterly baffling, with shoddy narrative (right down to the lack of the possessive apostrophe in captions) and inexplicable jumps at will between eras (not to mention a Stalinesque whitewashing of unfavourable band history). "Grown men will cry", reads a simpering NME review. They will when they see the ropey editing on show here. The opening caption of the 2011 press conference segment reads 'SOHO HOTEL, LONDON, 11th October 2011', showing Ian preparing to meet the band members and face the media. The press conference took place on 18th October 2011, so unless Ian was getting himself psyched up for this conference a full seven days in advance, that's a wrong caption date right from the get-go. Another caption reads: '20TH MARCH 1989 THREE WEEKS BEFORE THE STONE ROSES (sic) DEBUT ALBUM IS RELEASED'. This is patently not March 1989, but rather, months later, after the LP has been released. This should have been clear to Meadows had he watched even the first minute of this 1989 Transmission interview (Ian: "We didn't have an LP out...", meaning they do now !). In addition, the interviewer later asks, in a segment used by Meadows, "Well, if you're the best band in the world, why aren't you number one ?". Squire answers, "Because the record isn't out yet." The interviewer follows up with "Why wasn't your last single number one ? Why wasn't the album number one ?". Meadows is confusing Squire's answer ("Because the record isn't out yet...") to mean their debut LP, whereas Squire is referring to their new single, She Bangs The Drums. The question (Why wasn't the album number one ?") should have been an obvious indicator to Meadows that this band have indeed released their debut LP ! Why the band split is never explained. What the band did in the 15 years they were apart is never explained. How the band reunited is never explained. There are no interviews with them apart from tiny fragments of general chitchat over ancient super 8 / VHS footage. No exploration of the difficulties of rekindling a friendship after a betrayal, the nature of identity, how you define yourself over time, how the band and its members may have evolved, how no matter what happens next you are always defined by who you were for three years, over two decades ago. No exploration of the band's work, nor of the business of being in a band. Scant detail on the nature of forming a band in Britain in the '80s, or the cultural impact of the time. A 0.5 second shot of a smashed window in Hulme is as penetrating as things get on a sociological scale. Fitting as many superlatives into one sentence as is humanly possible, the director tries to articulate his excitement that his "all-time favourite band are getting back together after twenty years." Who then, was that group who toured the globe in 1995-96, footage of which features in your film ? Try fifteen years. In a brain-rotting vision of Fool's Gold - a veritable Hieronymus Bosch spectacle of comedy northerners - the pointless cutaways include an inebriated man falling asleep against an ice cream van, topless fans punching the air or spilling their lager, and some 'character' climbing a catering van (LAD !). Might as well be Newcastle on a Saturday night. Men in yellow jackets arrest people. There's no sense of an ending or any form of closure. The film just ends. I don't want to watch footage of you pair of pound shop Mitchell brothers slogging it out for the Super Banterweight Championship of the World, getting lost in your bantmobile (subtext: Shane Meadows wants you to know he is fallible. The banter brigade is in town, watch out lads). I don't want to watch footage of you editing this film in your car while tucking in to a curry (subtext: these two tubby funsters are working class hard-core fans, don't cha know ?). Next they'll be broadcasting to the world what brew they're partial to (Oh for fuck's sake...). The director cannot seem to decide whether he wants to make Life is Sweet (see the opening everyone-budge-up / why-are-ice-cubes-icy staged schmaltz. Go fuck a duck, kid) or A Hard Day's Night. The Stone Roses were blooming in Technicolor in their prime, exhibiting an oeuvre of Pollock paintings translated into sound. Here, their every move is presented in black and white (for 'added authenticity' and/or to obscure the aging of its key players), draining it of any life or atmosphere. For a film catered to the 'man on the street', Made of Stone assumes an excessive amount of knowledge about the band. We are half an hour in before the musicians introduce themselves to the camera as Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani (Gary Mounfield) and Reni (Alan Wren). The FM-Revolver paint incident is briefly covered. What led up to this ? What happened as a consequence ? The viewer is left completely oblivious. Begone minutiae, let's focus on how wacky the guys still are ! Made of Stone underwent several edits at the request of the band, none too impressed by a preview they were shown (begging the question, just how bad was this film before the final cut ?). Reni did not attend the premiere at Victoria Warehouse, claiming to be ill. Perhaps the exclusive preview was all he could stomach ? The only "hallelujah moment" to be found among this whole sorry mess comes from hitting eject on your DVD player. A most revealing video interview with Meadows can be found on The Guardian website, where the director is thrown the following softball question: "In terms of story, like story threads, is this just something you pick up as you go ?". With a rabbit in the headlights stare, Meadows responds, "What do you mean, story threads ?", further adding, "I don't ultimately know what I'm gonna end up making." Your honor, I rest my case.

This is a slight worry I have with SUPERSONIC.

RE the rose tinted spectacles: Mat Whitecross, I'm sure, is not half as big a fan of Oasis as Meadows is of the Roses - and I shouldn't think, that with the Gallagher brothers in it (not to mention Bonehead, McGee and Peggy G.), it could possibly be boring - but when you hear Noel doing his "We were the biggest band... pre-internet... you wouldn't get that these days..." routine, you do kind of fear the worse. I mean, sure, they were absolutely huge, and you probably wouldn't get a band becoming that big in the way and with the speed that they did, these days; and yes, I don't mind at all sitting down and being told how great Oasis were in the 90s, for 90 minutes; but I also feel a bit wary of snooty film critics who don't like Oasis being a bit put out by a potential onslaught of "they sold x many tickets... they had x number 1s...etc." 

That's why I'd quite like them to at least touch on Be Here Now at the end, and say, 'yeah, it all got a bit much for us'. Then at least the film'd have a comment to make on the downside of rock and roll and superstardom, and not just be a celebration of something that happened 20 years ago for 90 minutes (although, obviously, I'd still be well up for that!).

One thing we pretty much know though, is that the story of the News of the World sending the Gallagher's shyster dad to meet them at a hotel, when they were on tour, will probably be in there in some way, shape or form. That means the film won't pull any punches on describing their tough upbringing, and POTENTIALLY, it could mean the film might make a comment on tabloid media intrusion into the Gallagher's lives. I'm probably hoping for a bit too much here, but it would be nice for the Gallagher's (Liam in particular) to set the record straight, once and for all: they may have chased the front page every now and then, but that doesn't take away from the fact that the paps and their bosses at rags like the Mail and The Sun, and so on, are nasty bastards. And in the wake of Brexit and Chilcot bringing the lead-up to the Iraq war back into the light again, we need reminding of that fact more than ever. 

It was made by a fan for fans and nice to see live footages and all that if you've been there.
Pure nostalgia, nothing special.