Reviews

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  ★★★½ review by Cindy T on Letterboxd

  Just a few notes from the Tribeca Film Festival. No time for a proper review.

  Let me preface my comments on Super Duper Alice Cooper by saying I GOT TO MEET ALICE COOPER!! He attended the premiere screening, which I worked. As a fan of Alice Cooper, I was super-excited to meet him. I wish I could say the film was as exciting, but unfortunately it wasn't all that I hoped it would be. It was a very safe documentary. I really enjoyed the unseen concert footage from days past, but the documentary only presented Cooper in a positive light. It mostly skipped over his drug and alcohol abuse, and it totally ignored his super-religious beliefs. Most people don't know that he is an Old Testament literalist. Tis the stuff that makes documentaries gold and they did not mention it!

  Cooper narrates the majority of the film, but there is no present-day footage of him. His life story is told only up to his comeback in the early 80s. One of the directors said in the Q&A that he wanted to present it as a specific period of Cooper's life as Scorsese did in his Bob Dylan documentary.

  If you are a fan of Cooper, you should definitely see Super Duper Alice Cooper, but know in advance that you won't probably learn anything new about Alice Cooper.

  Oh, yeah--I EFFIN' MET ALICE COOPER!! "I'm not worthy!"

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  ★★★★ review by DMB on Letterboxd

  Profética me parece la letra de la canción de Alice Cooper "Halo of Flyes" (1973):

  "I got the answers to all of your questions if you've got the money to pay me in gold"

  
  
  Vincent Fournier/Alice Cooper no hace ninguna gran confesión en este producto ejecutado por Sam Dunn. El hecho de no ver el rostro de ninguno de los participantes, en su lugar tenemos animaciones y toneladas de videos de la época, deja claro que este docu es un mero pasatiempo del viejo diablo. Entretenido y divertido pero falto de acidez.
  
  Pagaría oro por ver reunidos a los miembros del magistral y psicotrónico Alice Cooper Group rememorando viejos tiempos, sin guión, dejandose llevar...... echándose viejas rencillas en cara.....porque Alice Cooper eran cinco personas, no solo Vinnie Fournier.

  Ah!.....y la música.....que decir de la música de Alice.....VEDLA Y ESCUCHADLA.

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  ★★★★★ review by disco lizard on Letterboxd

  ''We killed the chicken in front of 70 000 hippies.''
  
  I cried at this part.

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  ★★★★ review by Corey Pierce on Letterboxd

  I grew up a metalhead. When you grow up with metal (or pro wrestling for that matter), it never entirely leaves you. Alice Cooper though was never a guy that appealed to me all that much, save a few obvious tracks. But I always respected his broad influence as a showman, and thankfully this rock doc from the makers of A Headbanger's Journey, Global Metal, Flight 666 and Rush decided to follow that angle, from youth concluding up to his resurgence in the MTV era.

  Unlike the other Banger Films productions, SDAC eschews talking heads entirely for the parallax animation and archival footage mix most associated with The Kid Stays in the Picture and American: The Bill Hicks Story. I'd have to say the production work done in this film is the best use of this style to date, at no point (as it does in American) becoming irritating or distracting from the story being told.

  It also by chance happens to convince me Alice Cooper's music was at least a little better than I thought it was, and any time a music doc accomplishes this, I'd have to call that a win.

  This hits DVD pretty soon. Not a must see if you have no interest in the subject, but very good at what it does.

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  ★★★★ review by Lee Chrimes on Letterboxd

  Fascinating documentary focusing on the Coop, the grandfather of shock rock and a true rock 'n' roll survivor.

  Combining audio snippets, 'animated' old photographs (achieved by moving elements or compositing images, in a similar way to several recent documentaries), live footage, interviews and other archival material, what we get is a pretty honest journey from college band roots as The Spiders right through to 1986's triumphant The Nightmare Returns gig, chronicling the rise of the Alice Cooper phenomenon and not shying away from dips as Coop battled alcoholism and substance abuse.

  Although Alice Cooper is an interesting and genial enough personality to warrant non-fans giving this a go, if you're a Coop die hard of any real standing then you'll love how much background this gives you to the rises and falls of Alice Cooper as a band, solo artist and human being.

  We follow Vincent Furnier and his high school friends from Phoenix to LA, then the Alice Cooper Band's revival in the Detroit rock scene before national stardom gripped the band, pushing Alice into the spotlight and dissolving the original lineup. After surviving the booze, his comeback was marred by discovering cocaine (and famously making three albums he barely remembers) before the explosion of glam metal meant he could follow the footsteps of his own contemporaries, in much the same way Gary Numan reinvented himself as a gothic industrial rocker after watching Nine Inch Nails and others follow his original template.

  A bonus set of interview questions show the tongue in cheek, easy-going charm that makes Vincent Furnier the person so much fun to be around, and all in all you'll find this is an uplifting tale of rock 'n' roll, good and bad.

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