It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Several things they tried to do here. One is a Spinal Tap mockumentary only with a dance DJ in place of the band but it's still the same lovable idiocy of an ego that doesn't know how to be a calculating adult. It's fun, an acoustic device knob goes to 11, but this is undercut by something else they tried to do.This is the other movie here, about growth and "finding yourself". The DJ starts to lose his hearing. This leads to him losing touch with reality and being shut in his own self and you can imagine that all this talks about drugs and battling addiction. There's a demon of addiction as an actual demon in a furry costume that he hallucinates about who shovels cocaine in his face. The more abstract understanding about losing touch with reality yields the broader insight however.Now themes of this sort about characters "finding themselves" are usually ordinary and trite, in a general sense anyway. It seems they can happen in a Richard Gere movie where people are pretty and fate benevolent but not in the murk of actual life. There is some of that here, which makes it ordinary, he meets of course the woman who inspires courage so we can have the return to music in a life-affirming way as return to life, but everything about this romance feels like a sleight-of- hand.As typical as all that is, they did something borderline powerful in the images and notions they wove together. He begins to sense rhythm, an apt image shows him perceiving a flamenco dancer's vibrations in a cup he holds, which lets him once more perceive music but now in a subtler way and this leads to a beautiful metaphor - he 'sees' music around him, how life becomes 'music' once you become mindful, the return to life as alertness about things.I was reminded of a few things while watching. In the West we have Spinoza's god as the whole cosmos, Einstein would later groove on this because it could be spun to mean the cosmos science turns up amazing facts about, retaining some of the awe about the complexity, but we're not scientists in a lab, we can only pick up a book about that. The Chinese have what they call the Tao, similar at a glance, a sense of an all-encompassing natural force that pervades everything. What they mean though is the world that perception can encompass, all of the Taoist meditations, there are many and all of them coordinate flow, breath and perception, aim for this, the cultivation of alert awareness and this is a world partygoers and viewers alike can practice.When he returns to the dancefloor, music is no longer an excuse for ego and spazzing. Listening to the silence he finds more than deafness and void, finds the richness of a world that constantly comes to being and vanishes again every moment, the joy of being able to ride that flow, we see frequencies pass through a laptop screen that he has to match, his feet are strapped to vibrating speakers, into the dancing crowd below.It's not different music that he plays (well, he gives a spectacular performance). The people consume it as aimlessly (or as deeply, why not) as before when he was a clowning fool, they're probably as stoned as before. It's about how he learns to sieve through his own cluttered mind to find music in the nothingness.All this is so good in my eyes it deserves its own film, creative life as learning to be mindful of the resonances. I would have this as the Spinal Tap fun and that by the hand of a master fimmaker.

No, it's not a 10/10 movie, but sometimes it's about the liking, not the rating.So what's with this movie? It's funny, it has a happy ending with a beautiful Portuguese women and a baby. And a guy who got the bling but ends poor and with a happy family. Would someone comment? A dj at Ibiza submerged in drugs and party has found what everybody is hoping for? I don't believe in love at Ibiza or similar summer places. It's just an illusion to go there for it (as most do), but still those holidays can't be forgotten. Now, the movie is not like a holiday, party adepts might be disappointed.I feel this movie gives hope. So it's a positive experience. Paul Kaye is credible and an captivating actor. He seems so at ease in this role.On the other side, I might be biased. Well, I am biased. For some reason, Beatriz Batarda it's just so, mmm... my type in this movie.And still like that Reflekt "Need To Feel Loved" song once in a while.By the way, the movie is usually posted somewhere on Youtube. Enjoy.

With It's All Gone Pete Tong, director Michael Dowse gives us a funny, original and heartwarming mockumentary. It's All Gone Pete Tong tells the story of a DJ who is addicted to drugs and alcohol, yet people call his music brilliant. Years and years of playing next to speakers have done considerably damage to his ears leaving him deaf. His career ends and he secludes himself in his house. People think he has gone insane, until he meets a young woman who is also deaf, who teaches him how to read lips. They fall in love and he gets his career back by using the vibration of sound to record new music.The film is character centric, as we follow the main character from stardom to his falling and rise again. When we are first introduced to Frankie, the main character, he is an egocentric drug user. Qualities that usually are liked in people, but as the film goes on he loses all of these things and he get to know Frankie on a more personal level.The scene involving his kick of his drug addiction is both hilarious and frightening. Michael Dowse disguises a lot of dramatic tension and themes under a comedic tone. Drug addiction, disability and infidelity are all present in this film, but Dowse uses them in a comedic way that it doesn't seem out of place with the rest of the film.Paul Kaye is tremendous as Frankie. The entire film rests of his shoulders and he pulled off a comedic and depressing performance all in one. The entire soundtrack, with the exception of some classic scores, is mainly techno. It fits the theme and story of the film well. I believe the use of classical was a creative choice by the filmmakers because Frankie uses vibrations from the sound to create music, much like Beethoven did with his piano. I immediately saw a connection between the two and when classical music began playing it confirmed it.It's All Gone Pete Tong is a comedic film that not only has laughs, but life lessons as well. Many of its themes are multi-layered as are the main character's conflicts. I had never seen or heard of this film before, but am glad that we were able to watch the entire film.

I love movies where people do a ton of drugs! This film takes place on the party island of Ibiza and revolves around the life of a DJ who is slowly going deaf. The music is cool even if you aren't into that music scene you will like this movie. For one thing its funny. I laughed out loud several times during this film. The acting is good from everyone. Its a touching story. Its a good movie to watch after getting a buzz. The scenes with the giant hallucination that chases him around are great. The way he dances and freaks out at all the parties made me laugh. I laughed a lot during this movie. It was a well written script. I hope more people get a chance to see this move. Anyone interested in deafness themselves should buy this movie.