The New York Times has a brief piece on the upcoming documentary, “Meat Loaf :In Search of Paradise,” which we briefly mentioned in our spring preview piece.
The film has backstory — Loaf’s childhood as a “shy, fat kid in Dallas named Marvin Lee Aday”; the huge success of ’77’s Bat Out Of Hell ; his self-destructive ’80s; and his comebacks with two “Bat” sequels — but mainly focuses as a warts and all chronicle of rehearsals and tour in support of the third disc in the “Bat Out of Hell” franchise.
The Times calls the depiction, “amusing and frank,” and apparently he chastises his back-up singers wardrobe, “Less hooker, more Studio 54.” Aww, c’mon, that’s mean coming from you Mr. Loaf.
Apparently there’s a good section of the film where Loaf fumes over reviews that call his ‘Dashboard Lights;’ duet with 28-year-old singer Aspen Miller, “awkward and unsavory.”
The film portrayal is one that shows Loaf as a “obsessive, self-punishing performer,” but otherwise sounds tame and not the total trainwreck we had hoped for. “I’ve many mistakes in my life, I’ve been an asshole and now I’m trying to improve,” is about as much sensationalist stuff as the trailer can muster (though the stuff about his backup dancers looking like, “12-year-old, skinny skanks” is rather amusing). Maybe we’ll just stay home that night. ‘In Search of Paradise,’ opens next Wednesday in limited release in New York and L.A.
Watch: “Meat Loaf :In Search of Paradise”
