Release Date: Nov. 11
Director: Jack Gulick and Daniel E. Catullo III
Editor: Justin Coloma
Starring: Billy Corgan
Studio/Run Time: Coming Home Media, 271 mins.
Double-disc chronicles recent reunion of seminal alternative band
When Smashing Pumpkins reunited in 2007 (with only two original members, Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin), cynics wrote it off as a cash-in. But bands looking for a quick buck don’t neglect their classic hits for punishing new rock songs and beautiful acoustic material with increasingly sophomoric lyrics (their frequent superimposition on the screen—in calligraphy, no less—doesn’t do them any favors). And they definitely don’t insist on playing excruciating half-hour noise-rock jams like “Gossamer.” This portrait of Corgan strives to be flattering and intimate, but the two are at odds. He spends half of his time in a nightgown, fuming over ancient slights, nursing his outsized messiah complex and commensurate neediness (his assistant, in a ?casual aside, mentions that he sometimes calls her “Mommy”). He seems at ease only when his long fingers are effortlessly coaxing impossible chords from his guitar.