LOVE

Blink-182 front man Tom Delonge started Angels and Airwaves after the demise of blink-182 (who are now back together), it was a new band and an outlet for him to try things that he felt blink-182 was holding him back from. The band's first album, We Don't Need To Whisper (2006) was on constant play in my room, I would often need music to fall asleep and it would always be the first of 6 cd's in my cd player. I loved that album because it was dreamy but also had insightful lyrics and rocked at certain points. Angels and Airwaves would release their sophomore album in 2007, it was called I-Empire which I enjoyed but not as much as the first album. In 2010 Angels and Airwaves released LOVE, a free album which could be downloaded on their web site for no cost.

It was around then that I started to hear that they were filming a movie to the music of the LOVE album. What I didn't know is that they started working on the movie 5 years ago. The band wanted to convey a message to the fans through other ways besides music. Delonge hired William Eubank and the band produced the movie on a shoe string budget, which was $500,000. Eubank built sets in his parents driveway building each set piece mostly with just a few people helping him out. The movie also features a small civil war battle which was all filmed in his parents back yard. Having seen the film, some of it looks like it was professionally done and I give many kudos to Eubank for taking 5 long years of his life to make the sets and work his hardest on the film. It is not everyday that a band realses a movie and I think it was a cool way to get their message out.


The trailer for LOVE



I saw the movie earlier this week, it was one of those fanthom events you often see before a movie starts. The band took questions from write ins after the movie as well as playing a small set of songs including the debut of a new song. I won't say the theater was crowded but they people in the audience were real fans of Angels and Airwaves music. About 20 minutes before the show started Delonge introduced some shorts that tie into the movie and then they showed the movie itself. I am not going to explain the entire plot but here is my thought on the movie: I really liked that the band went out on a limb and the film conveys a message but does so in a long and drawn out way. I respect the hell out of Delonge and Eubank, but the movie lags in several spots and makes you wonder when the end will come. The movie does look amazing, they paid great detail to everything you see in it and it looks the budget of it was much more then what is being reported. Eubank was a cinematographer on 8 other movies and knows how to make a movie look its best.

LOVE, was a great experiment in movie making. I love that a band produced a movie and stuck through with it for 5 years. They really wanted to show their die hard fans that they are very serious about the music and its messages. I wanted to really love the movie but I cannot say I did, but I can also say that I think it was a good idea and maybe one day it will sink in but for now the movie sort of missed its overall mark.