Eraserheads Reunion Concert: The Movie: Movie Review

It was August 30, 2008. It was hot, humid yet comforting as the wind slowly cooled things off. Thousands upon thousands lined up, waited, standing and cheered as a Countdown Timer showed up on screen. And as the clock slowly flickered to the final seconds before lift off, people jumped, screamed and tears fell from their eyes as the Eraserheads were back at last. Yes, as you may all know it was the comeback concert everyone wished and hoped for but no one really foresaw coming. For those who came, it was a night most will cherish and never to be forgotten but for those who didn't, some may be just indifferent about the E-heads but surely some have regretted their decision for months on end. Now, thanks to Sony-BMG Philippines, the concert that everyone has talked about can be seen, heard and cherished once more with this release on the big screen. The question to ask now is did it really capture that magical night at the Fort?

The answer is a straight N-O, NO! Nothing leaves us more disappointed than this release. First and foremost, thanks Sony-BMG for releasing a product that is below mediocrity; it dwells to something unedited, uncut yet for most films, people would appreciate that, but here, it just is plain laziness and greed. Here's our conclusion to what may and most likely happened. Someone in Sony-BMG had a brilliant idea that E-heads fans would do anything just to watch or even hear the E-heads again. Now instead of spending time to give thought, money and time to the product, they wanted to save Benjamins and they just released a raw version of the film. They did not even bother to change the video quality to something that is acceptable on the big screen. Hey, we even bet our money that this will be a pixelated junk just on a DVD! Just imagine this, try going to YouTube and searching for E-head Concert videos, what you are going to witness is exactly the same thing as what we saw on the theater. So you just paid for something that you could have gotten for free on the net and that is even without violating any copyright laws. If concerts from the 80's can be fixed to pristine conditions, why not more during this digital age?

Second, we do not deem ourselves as experts on Movie-concerts thing but after experiencing a handful of movie-concerts on DVDs, we believe even the directing and editing of scenes were just a mish-mash of whatever was taken during the concert. In no way does it capture any of the feeling that we felt on August.

Finally, the sound quality was well, normal. Nothing wrong and nothing bright about it and ironically, this is the only good thing about this release. Our advice, just keep your eyes closed and listen and that's it! Enjoy the music not the visuals!

We are fans of the E-heads, it is just so frustrating that something like this was released. It's obviously something to cash in on the renewed E-heads craze and nothing screams "MOOLAH" after watching this. It would have been better if they just made this into a Direct-to-DVD release or better yet, they should have bundled this with the newly released music album of the reunion concert. This is NOT a tribute to the Eraserheads. This is a SACRILEGE to their music and to their fans. Some may enjoy it but for us, we are just saddened by what happened. Please avoid if you can!

Rating: 1 reel




Why you should watch it:
- if you are a die-hard E-heads fanatic and did not get to watch the concert for some unscrupulous reason then maybe, just maybe, you will get to enjoy this ride.

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- video quality that screams YouTube
- really poor editing and directing of shots
- does not capture the magic of the concert
- feels like a mish-mash of shots that were made just to finish off the concert movie on a hurry