And what hits me? My childhood friend Ben always said he found it impossible to predict if I was going to like a movie or not. Whether it’s a western or a thriller or a war movie or a comedy or drama or an animated scifi musical set in the middle ages… what  hits me is aliveness. This movie about two kids creating their own metal band is so alive it lives with you for days. IF you are in any way like the three main characters. The two friends raising metal hell and a young lady who even though she plays classical music would be a good fit for the band.

If you are intense, rarely fit in, are always looking to channel your oddball energy into something, hunger for connection, but kinda suck at being vulnerable then I don’t see how this CANNOT hit you.

One kid is permeable and somewhat easily led, but a good person in a realistic way, not with an idealized movie kind of goodness.

One kid is dominant, domineering, and apparently only permeable by… metal. It’s he who pulls his friend into metal.

The message could be: don’t assume you can force your intensity down only ONE narrowly defined route.

The less obsessed one becomes obsessed with being good at playing metal music, but since metal is not this thing that has to save his soul, redeem his life, counter every setback he can be more creative with it.

The girl is one of the most memorable female characters and is anything but generic.

The music is good, even if, like me, you are not too much into metal.

The actors are hellah convincing, even their messy improvised rehearsals have spirit.

At times it’s like the movie Whiplash, it has that sweaty drive to excel at something.

It’s inexplicably beautiful to see people give something their all.

As soon as one of the kids goes: ‘Play. Something. Heavy.’ I was hooked. Most likely cause the urge resonated.

Whatever I’ve ever written it never smacks the page as hard as I would have liked, that’s dissapointing, and then I show up and hit it again hoping against hope that somehow something in this world will move in a direction I want it to move if I just punch the keys hard enough.

It almost never does.

It’s the thrill of doing something insane.

Putting words out there and embracing the delusional you could actually wield a verbal ax to hack apart the frozen sea inside another human being, to borrow heavily from Kafka.

If you feel chips of ice flying around contact me. I don’t bite unless asked by someone I fancy as much as Ozzy fancied being deviant.