Supersonic (2016)

How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Oasis were arguably the biggest rock band in the nineties. With reunion rumours circulating last year, Supersonic examines Noel and Liam Gallagher's childhood, forming Oasis, the band's explosion with "Definitely Maybe" and "(What's the Story) Morning Glory" and the inner turmoil as they became unstoppable superstars with their rebellious energy and epic songs.The documentary is framed by the band's biggest moment, two nights at Knebworth in August 1996, the band flying over the massive crowd in a helicopter.There is plenty for Oasis fans to enjoy, with home videos, rare footage (including an early rehearsal version of "All Around the World"), clever visuals (including dialogue animated by magazine cutouts) and regular commentary from Liam and Noel, their mother Peggy, brother Paul, Creation Records' Alan McGee (who signed the band in the early nineties) and former members Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs and Tony McCarroll amongst others.The heated, love-hate relationship between Liam and Noel is an important part of the documentary. The brothers admit their dynamic not only made the band so successful but eventually tore it apart. Personality-wise, Noel compares himself to a cat (quiet, introspective, independent) and Liam as a dog (loud, energetic and always needing attention).The supreme confidence of Liam and Noel made Oasis the swaggering force of rock music, and comes across – even 20 years later – in the interviews. Liam and Noel have no doubt Oasis were the biggest band on the planet, embracing their rowdy, bad boy image both in the press and on the road. When other band members (like McCarroll) couldn't handle Oasis' lifestyle anymore, Noel cut ties and moved on to find a replacement quickly, the band always came first. Noel's drive for success was immense, taking on more singing responsibilities to cover Liam's occasional early finishes and throat problems. Refreshingly, Noel and Liam are candid about the band's drug use on the road (which triggered the first of numerous Noel walkouts) and the abusive relationship with their estranged father Thomas, which got ugly when Thomas started using the press (who were suckers for anything Oasis- related) to his advantage. There's a lot of respect for their mother Peggy, who raised three boys by herself after leaving Thomas.Tellingly, Supersonic finishes in 1996, ignoring the drug-fuelled mess of "Be Here Now", their fall from mega-fame in the 2000s (after the disappointing "Standing on the Shoulder of Giants"), a late recovery and their 2009 split (when Noel finally walked out for good). This is for the best, as most Oasis fans would agree that "Definitely..." and "...Morning Glory" are the only albums that live up to Oasis' legacy. It's a wise choice, letting the documentary show Oasis at their very best.

"Just because you can't get any bigger or any higher doesn't mean to say you can't keep doing it." –Liam Gallagher This film is brilliant on so many levels that it's difficult to keep track of them all. The film deals only with the time in which the band went in less than 3 years from signing to a label to its apotheosis at the Knebworth concert in 1996 in front of a quarter of a million fans. Drugs used (but not abused, claimed Liam), music played and written, bands changes made told mostly in their own words in the flash when the band went from complete obscurity to total brilliance in the world of rock and roll in the mid 90s. There is an incredibly intense personal telling of this story through scraps of dialogue from the band patched together with their music. This intimate look at the band is even more remarkable considering how the story is twenty years old. An incredible achievement in film.Starting backwards I have to point out that the editing is nothing less than inspired, as inspired as the music. Just try to imagine the heaps of video clips, press releases, interview takes, photos, bootleg recordings, and police reports that went into the final product of Oasis: Supersonic.The band members are from lower middle class roots yet their intelligence and wicked sense of humor shine through thick accents and lazy grammar at every step along their narrative. I'm no slouch at foreign languages but I was very thankful for the English subtitles for all of the intensely Mancunian bits.

I spent my teen years in the '90s and till today I'm still a huge fan of The X-Files, Arsenal FC, and my favorite band ever, OASIS, and so naturally I was geekin' out about this new docu about them, directed by Mat Whitecross. Brought to you by the producers of "Amy" and "Senna" OASIS: SUPERSONIC chronicles the incredible true story of the rise, reign, explosion and fall of the legendary rock band OASIS.Now, here's the thing, if you're as big a fan of theirs as I am, you'd already know their story by heart, how they came to be, their humble but happy beginning, what they did to make a living in their early years, how they got together as a band and how they eventually signed on to a recording deal. This really isn't anything new for us fans. But to those who don't know those details, OASIS: SUPERSONIC goes thorough and chronologically in presenting them. The film really really goes into the heart of it, it's authentic, it's magnetic, it draws you in and it covers every little detail, one after the other and it interviews every person directly involved during each specific moment.I may be mistaken but I don't believe this is the first docu that's ever made about OASIS, but it's definitely one that leaves no stone unturned. It's as definitive and as extensive as it gets. Especially with all the raw archival footage from the earl '90s when they were just a struggling band, that alone manages to transport a lot of us back through time, all of a sudden, nostalgia of things used to be just come rushing in like a floodgate had just been opened. It's fascinating when you look at the two brothers, Noel and Liam, because they have a peculiar way of showing sibling love to each other. Just like any other siblings, they too would fight, but I suppose it finally got to a point where they just had to part. But the combination of Noel Gallagher's songwriting talent and Liam's unique distinctive voice are the stuff that rock history is made of. You see their arc, the evolution of the band, their transition, their effort in adapting to the times, all covered in OASIS: SUPERSONIC, which is a must-see docu for us OASIS fans everywhere, it opens the door to one of all-time greatest rock bands. A24 releases OASIS: SUPERSONIC in U.S. theaters as a one-night only theatrical event on October 26, 2016-- Rama's Screen --

Regardless of the subject matter or the music, this is a brilliant documentary, never anything other than subjective. Obviously I'm a fan-boy, loving the first album despite phasing out after the release of the SOME MIGHT SAY single and disliking the 2nd album with growing apathy with each release and the growing super-stardom that followed. The summer of '94 brings great memories, with friends, whirlwind romances, chemical discoveries, and what not, fun coming out me ear-holes, with Definitely Maybe sound tracking it. I'd managed to stave off the tracksuit image....just.....but it all felt real still. I'd grown sceptical of what the band later achieved and audiences that followed them. I guess it was inevitable, and call me a snob, but it was satisfying that last night this doc identified exactly what happened to Oasis, what they became, beyond any media promotion or shallow hipster idolisation. They simply haven't got the creative nous to produce further albums of greatness beyond that exhilarating debut (think the Pistols here also, like). And its for all to see up there on screen, the original bands awareness of themselves beyond the cocaine fuelled hedonism and, of course, the wealth. Of course it carried on as we know and the rest is history, a disappointing history for me, alas. Because Definitely Maybe is a f*cking mega album, end of. And this doc is too. Its not DiG! that the f*cking hipsters all think is great (Its not guys - its a shocking doc, but has great music). Its the real deal whether you like the band or not, an expose of EXACTLY what it must be like for a bunch of scallies from Burnage, with a love for hedonism and rock 'n' roll, who got marketed and became massive beyond their control. Mega! x.