The Work of Director Spike Jonze

Man, the preview for this series looked fantastic, but sorting through the 333 minutes of the dual-sided DVD gave me (and my remote) pause.

If you were considering watching this, I'd go in the reverse order of what I did. I went mostly sequentially through it which meant first the videos (which were alright to see again, many I had seen before...) and then the commentary for said videos, which was excruciating at times.

Then when I flipped it, the rarities just seemed like they could have been any college kid's reel (well not any, but you know...more aren't than art).

Then finally I hit the documentaries like a marathon runner hitting the wall...but those were clearly the most interesting. The awkwardness, self-deferential tone of the Fat Lip nicely set up the amazing "Praise You" mini-history. I don't want to comment too much about that for spoiling it, but suffice it to say several times during its filming I found myself wondering if art is for the artists alone, or if it requires a connection with an audience.

To me that's an interesting and intricate question. Just like what grade to do you give a B-boy who has F-minus skills and A-plus attitude?

So if you rent this, I'd definitely say watch that, and also the "Amarillo" documentary on Texas teens with rodeo driven dreams first. Then the Oasis video that never was, and then enjoy your old favorite Spike'd videos. For me those foremost were Bjork (always) and surprisingly the Breeder's "Cannonball." I wonder if the new Deal, er Deals, are up to the old...

Kind of hard to rate this, so I'll just give it a point for each *hour* (yikes...)

5.5/10