BROADWAY IDIOT

In 2007 director Michael Mayer won his Tony Award for 'Spring Awakening' the exhilarating rock musical based on an obscure 19th German play that re-defined Broadway musicals for a new a generation.  It was a hard act to follow but Mayer had the inspired idea to develop a new Musical based on the punk group Green Day's mega hit iconic album 'American Idiot' which was essentially a kind of rock opera about an anti-hero called Jesus of Suburbia. 

The three members of Green Day were extremely cautious of the whole concept and in fact didn't give Mayer and his team permission to actually proceed until they did a mini-production of their take on a few of the songs. Billie Joe Armstrong the band's songwriter and frontman not only immediately endorsed the Show, but from then on actively encouraged the project and got involved wherever he could. 

This documentary from filmmaker Doug Hamilton covers the whole process of the creation of the show right through to the point that it is a critical and commercial hit on Broadway and the once reluctant Armstrong is now making occasional appearances on stage playing one of the lead characters.  It's an intoxicating ride and a great backstage story watching this show in the making. Whilst they are working from existing songs (and a few more from another Green Day album) Tom Kitt the musical collaborator must make them fit within the framework of the show and when he nervously previews them he is relived to hear that Armstrong think the arrangements are even better than his own.

Meanwhile when  Green Day is then nominated for some Grammys, Armstrong insists that he and the whole cast perform together at the Awards Concert. They are sensational which is perfectly fitting as that very night they have learnt that their tryout run in LA is to end as it has been confirmed that the Show is definitely destined  for Broadway.

OK.  Confession time.  I had heard of Green Day BUT had never knowingly listened to their music. Now I know that they are not only one of biggest rock groups around today, but that they write and sing some amazingly political-charged powerful songs about wanting to follow their dreams. By the end of the film I could appreciate not just the energy of their operatic like album and why Mayer could see so much in it, but also the fact that Armstrong was such a disarming charmer of a man too.

If you like these behind the curtain backstage stories then you will find this totally fascinating, and if like me, you have such fond memories of The Who's 'Tommy' then you will really relate to this too.  

P.S. The Show ended up winning two Tony's in 2010 and the Best Cast Album Grammy in 2011 : it ran over a year in Broadway and then toured the world ... literally .... after that.

★★★★★★★★

The movie is on limited theatrical release now and also VOD @ Amazon

'THE TAQWACORES' & 'TAQWACORE:THE BIRTH OF PUNK ISLAM'

The intro to my Blog says when it comes to movies my preference is ‘the weirder the better’ and I guess this movie definitely falls into that category.  It’s title is an amalgamation of ‘taqwa’ an Islamic word denoting love & fear for Allah, and ‘core’ for hardcore as in punk music i.e. its about Islamic Punk Rock. Who even knew there was such a thing?

It all started with Michael (Mohammed) Knight a nice American Celtic lad whose life with a racial separatist father and an abused mother led him to seek enlightenment in a mosque in Pakistan. On his return to the US he wrote ‘The Taqwacores’ a novel about a fictious group of punk rock musicians that gained a following among young North American Muslims who felt stifled by their religion and their heritage. The book spurred more of them to start their own bands, which in led to Omar Majeed’s documentary ‘Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam’.  Majeed filmed Knight accompanying several of these bands on a bus touring and playing in diverse venues around the US.  Eventually they all ended up in Pakistan looking to spread the punk message to some very baffled and disconcerted locals who simply didn’t get it!

And then came the feature film based on Mr. Knight’s book and directed by first time filmmaker Eyad Zahra.  It’s the story of Yusef, a first generation Pakistani student with overly-keen well-meaning parents, who discovers the house he is going to room in, is full of Muslim punks.  It’s a rather squalid house with its assorted group of residents who have some decidedly untraditional ideas about their faith.  There are prayers during the day and wild parties at night.

As a way of explanation, one of them tells Yusef that ‘Allah is too big and too open for my Islam to be small and closed’. And slowly straight-laced Yusef gets the message and starts to unwind, and by the time there is one enormous party in the house, which numerous local Taqwacores are invited to play and stay over, his world finally explodes.

The Documentary was a great scene setter and gave more relevance to some of the issues that the Feature Film touched on.  I guess it also opened my eyes to this whole burgeoning culture that I was totally unaware off, and more importantly it educated me about the ignorance and reluctance that it encountered within not just the Islamic community but in a very bigoted society as a whole.

It is no means a perfect film and it was a little too crude at times, and although occasionally a tad heavy handed with its message, it was also had some sensitive takes on how these young westernized Moslems deal with issues that are particularly ‘touchy’ for their faith, such as pre-marital sex, homosexuality and the place of women.

I found it thoroughly enlightening, and enormously entertaining even though I will fess up I am no big punk rock fan, Moslem or otherwise.

The Feature Film is available on DVD, the Novel is also still available, but I thought the Documentary would be tough to track down but evidently its available at Walmart ! Who would have guessed, but they obviously have not watched it themselves !

★★★★★★★★

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