Directed and shot by Peter Christopherson and written, co-starring, and scored by Trent Reznor, The Broken Movie is a twenty-minute short film in which a young man is kidnapped and tortured as he’s forced to watch videos. The film is a companion piece to the 1992 EP by Nine Inch Nails that is presented as a snuff film to play into many of Reznor’s dark vision of the record with help from Christopherson who would also direct a couple of the music videos in the film with the duo of Eric Goode and Serge Becker directing two of the videos and Jon Reiss directing a video. The result is a grisly, disgusting, and insane short film from Peter Christopher and Trent Reznor.
The film follows a young man who is taken by a mysterious man in a mask as he’s forced to watch four music videos while being tortured, sodomized, and all sorts of things as it is being filmed for a snuff film. That is pretty much the premise as it is presented in graphic detail by director Peter Christopherson who shoots it on a hand-held home video camera where this young man is being tortured into watching these five music videos. Two of the videos by Eric Goode and Serge Becker for the instrumentals Pinion and Help Me I Am in Hell show two ideas of torture as the former features what happens when a toilet flushes and where does it go while the latter involves a man eating steak in a room surrounded by flies that is inter-cut with him in S&M gear.
The video for Happiness in Slavery by Jon Reiss is a video of absolute extremes which features the late performance artist Bob Flanagan getting ready to sit on a torture device that is gruesome to watch in terms of what happens to Flanagan and its aftermath. The video for Wish by Christopherson that features NIN playing inside a cage with rabid fans wanting to kill them is the tamest of the five as a version of Gave Up is essentially a video of Reznor singing in black-and-white footage on a TV screen while the mysterious man unmasks and tortures his victim that is inter-cut with the aftermath that features then-NIN live guitarist/future co-founder of Filter in Richard Patrick as a police officer who goes into the scene of the crime. The film opens and ends with a man on his final walk before he is to be hanged as it play into the narrative over what had just happened.
The Broken Movie is a repulsive and diabolical promotional short film from Peter Christopherson but for all of the right reasons. It’s a film that is meant to be confrontational and controversial as an extremely dark vision from Trent Reznor over what a visual interpretation of his EP should be. It’s a film that is definitely not for everyone as well as being hard to find, unless you’re a NIN fan, which is often the case for a film that was never intended for a commercial release. In the end, The Broken Movie is a fucked-up yet incredible promotional short film from Peter Christopherson and Trent Reznor.
Nine Inch Nails: halos: halo 1 - halo 2 - halo 3 - halo 4 - halo 5 - halo 6 - halo 7 – halo 8 – halo 9 – halo 10 – halo 11 – halo 12 - halo 13 – (halo 14) – (halo 15) – (halo 16) – (halo 17) - (halo 18) – (halo 19) – (halo 20) – (halo 21) – (halo 22) - (halo 23) – (halo 24) – (halo 25) – (halo 26) – (halo 27) - (halo 28) – (halo 29) – (halo 30) – (halo 31) – (halo 32)
seeds: (seed 1) – (seed 2) – (seed 3) – (seed 4) – (seed 5) – (seed 6) – (seed 7) – (seed 8)
Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross Film Soundtracks: null 1 - null 2 - (null 3) – (null 4) – (null 5) – (null 6) - (null 7)
Soundtracks/Miscellaneous: Natural Born Killers OST – Quake OST - Lost Highway OST
Live Shows: (NIN/Bauhaus/TV on the Radio-6/7/06 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) – (NIN/Deerhunter-8/13/08 Duluth, GA Gwinnett Arena) - (Jane’s Addiction/NIN/Street Sweeper Social Club-5/10/09 Atlanta, GA Hi-Fi Buys Amphitheater) – NIN/Godspeed You! Black Emperor-10/24/13 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena - NIN/Jesus & Mary Chain/Tobacco-9/27/18 Atlanta, GA Fox Theatre
© thevoid99 2018
Directed by Allen Hughes and written by Hughes, Lasse Jarvi, and Doug Pray, The Defiant Ones is a documentary film about the unlikely partnership between music producer/Interscope Records co-founder Jimmy Iovine and rap superstar/producer Dr. Dre. The film follows the two men from their different backgrounds musically and culturally yet would bond due to their need to reinvent the music industry as it’s told in four parts. The result is a very fascinating and exciting film from Allen Hughes.
The film is a four-part story about the partnership that would change the industry as it begins with the news in 2014 when Apple bought the speakers/streaming service known as Beats for $3.2 billion that included the services of its founders in Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and Jimmy Iovine as it was considered a game-changer. It is a triumphant moment for the two who both came a long way as they both come from different backgrounds musically and culturally. The four-part documentary doesn’t follow Dre and Iovine in forming this landmark deal that made them billionaires but also their lives from the very beginning as two both made their mark as producers early on and then took on a much bigger role in the world of popular music.
Allen Hughes’ direction is quite grand as it feature a lot of visuals of different locations while many of the interviews with Dre, Iovine, and people who worked with them as well as colleagues and a few family/friends are all straightforward. Among them are Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas, Gwen Stefani, Trent Reznor, Bono of U2, Dre’s wife Andre Young, and several others including Iovine’s ex-wife Vicki McCarty. The film doesn’t just follow Dre and Iovine in their businesses and setting up plans to create a program at the University of South California but also their own individual projects as well as their lives early on. Notably in the different backgrounds of Dre and Iovine as the former lived in the ghettos of Compton near Los Angeles while the latter was from Brooklyn from an Italian family that had just moved to America.
With Dre being part of the influential gangsta-rap group N.W.A. with Ice Cube, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, MC Ren, and lyricist D.O.C. while Iovine would get his break mixing a record for John Lennon that would give him the chance to work with Bruce Springsteen and produce albums for Patti Smith, Tom Petty & the Heartbreaks, and Stevie Nicks. Yet, both men would endure some early tragedies in their lives where Dre lost his half-brother Tyree while on tour w/ N.W.A. while Iovine lost his fraternal grandparents and his father in the span of six weeks. The film’s second part ended with the two men at a crossroads with Dre officially leaving N.W.A. over financial issues that eventually tore the group apart while Iovine had become burned out by producing records as he was more interested in the world of business. The film’s third part is about the formation of Interscope Records with Ted Fields as a co-founder as Iovine tried to find the right acts as he would make a few major signings in getting Nine Inch Nails and its leader Trent Reznor to the label by buying out Reznor’s contract with TVT Records which include interviews with its smarmy founder Steve Gottlieb in all of his douchieness.
Dre meanwhile forms Death Row Records with Suge Knight and discover Snoop Dogg yet was still embroiled with legal issues until Iovine came into picture as he would hear Dre’s solo debut The Chronic and get Death Row be part of Interscope against the advice of many executives and corporate people. By 1994, Interscope was huge thanks in part to Dre, Snoop, NIN, and Tupac Shakur but also gain a lot of controversy over its lyrical content which lead to Time Warner getting into big trouble as they wanted Iovine to drop Death Row from Interscope in exchange for the label to be bought out for $150 million. Iovine refuses as he would move the company to MCA/Universal in 1996 where the label was thriving as there was a week where four albums from Interscope were securing the four top spots at the Billboard 200 album charts. Yet, it was bittersweet as 2Pac was gunned down a second time in September of 1996 and later died during the tumultuous Death Row-Bad Boy Records feud that would also claim the life of the Notorious B.I.G. seven months later.
Months before 2Pac’s death, Dre would leave Death Row due to the East coast-West coast feud as well as the violence that was happening in the label as he would form Aftermath Records which struggled to succeed until 1999 when Dre produced Eminem’s major-label debut as it became a major hit. The discovery of Eminem would start the fourth part as the film would also reveal why the album Detox that was supposed to be Dre’s third solo album was never released as he focused his time on creating the Beats headphones and speakers which he partnered with Iovine. The film, which is shot by cinematographer Charles Parish along with several others, have this gorgeous look to the locations as it follows Dre and Iovine in the course of two years. Editors and the film’s co-writers in Lasse Jarvi and Doug Pray would compile a lot of footage and such including rare performances and music interviews to help tell the story with sound editor Jay Nierenberg and sound designer Brent Findley providing a nice sequence in the way music sounds during a mix.
At the heart of the film is the music as it doesn’t just feature a lot of the music from the artists Dre and Iovine were involved with as well as those from Interscope. It also feature some ambient score music by Iovine’s in-laws in Atticus and Leopold Ross and Atticus’ wife Claudia Sarne.
The Defiant Ones is a marvelous film from Allen Hughes. While it is a bit flawed due to the fact that it’s kind of an advertisement for Beats headphones/speakers while it also have some very exaggerated stories. It is still an engrossing and entertaining film about a partnership that proves to be fruitful and profitable. In the end, The Defiant Ones is a remarkable film from Allen Hughes.
© thevoid99 2017
