If Cameron Crowe has been keeping a low profile in recent years, the director will be pretty much everywhere this year. He already premiered his Elton John documentary “The Union” at the recent Tribeca Film Festival, he’s getting ready to release the Matt Damon-led dramedy “We Bought A Zoo” later this year, and in addition to that, he drops another music doc, “Pearl Jam Twenty” a look back at the history of the iconic grunge band.
The film is a career-spanning look at the Seattle rock band, assembled from 18 to 20 hours of material from the band’s long career as well as footage he’s shot over the last year and a half. Following a rough cut screening earlier this year, bassist Jeff Ament said, “It was so fucking weird seeing footage of stuff I didn’t know anybody was taping at the time. The whole movie is Cameron’s love letter to us – but it’s equal parts complimentary and really painful. It shows our growing pains and some real bad times, including Roskilde [the 2000 Danish festival where nine fans were trampled to death during the band’s set]. It was just really hard to watch.”
A teaser trailer for the film has dropped and it’s a bit more playful, documenting the band as they transition from their old — and pretty bad — band name to the one we know now. “Pearl Jam Twenty” will get a release in September with all kinds of extra bells and whistles including a book and a soundtrack. [Spin]
