High and Dry (2005) User Reviews

This movie rocks!

[elizabethgessel · 8/10 · 27 September 2007]

I think this movie is great. It takes a local music scene in an out-of-the way place, Tuscon, Arizona, and shows you over several decades how without any established independent venues, a grass-roots music culture grows from house parties and ultimately (at least when this film ends) produces an internationally known and awesome band, Calexico. The beauty of this film is in the incredible archival footage from the past thirty years. It is a documentarian's dream come true to have the source material available to show the viewer what it was really like to see these bands play in people's houses and in ridiculously small venues, rather than having to rely on participant's memories of what is was like. The film has a good mix of interviews with musicians and fans of the Tuscon scene to supplement the archival images. Is Tuscon unique or was this happening in dozens of other small cities across America? It most likely did occur in similar ways in other places, but lucky for us, because of this movie, we get to see how it happened in Tuscon with some totally rockin' music.

boooorrrriiinnnggg

[backsplash1005 · 1/10 · 12 April 2007]

Like most DIY films of this ilk, this film is of interest only to those who are in it. A history of a bunch of lousy bands who, with a few exceptions, no one has deservedly heard of, and have broken up years ago. The one saving grace to this film is Howe Gelb and the various members of his rotating band, whose music is actually decent and transcends this rather badly done homemade documentary. Howe himself admits the only reason he stayed in Tucson so long was that he was "trapped" there due to the fact that he wanted his daughter to have a stable upbringing in the schools. Trapped is how you will feel too. The Bob Log III segment is funny, as he doesn't bother to take his helmet off. Other than that it is painfully long and boring...High and Dry -- aptly named. A pile of middle-aged rock and roll has-beens-that-never-weres reminiscing about the glory days when 10 or 20 of them would get together at somebodies house to hear a half-assed band play. They had to do that as Tucson was so backwater there were no real rock venues to play in until the 90s. Unfortunately, rock was pretty much dead by then. Particularly embarrassing was this guy named David Slutes who had a band the local priests called "Satanic" -- even though they were the spokesmen for a Don't Do Drugs campaign, complete with posters. You could go to any small city and make a home movie like this. As I throttled the fast-forward to save myself the pain of watching this I couldn't help but wonder -- who cares?