All I Can Say

Blind Melon frontman Shannon Hoon died 25 years ago, but he gets a posthumous co-directing credit for this documentary assembled from raggedy, intimate VHS footage he shot between 1990 and 1995. An addict with a habit of attracting trouble, Hoon toted his video camera everywhere – on tour, in recording sessions, in lonely hotel rooms, even in the bathroom – anticipating an era when we all document the mundanities of our lives. From the most generous angle, All I Can Say functions as a found footage précis of the perils of fast fame, illustrating Hoon’s deepening addictions as the band’s profile rises. (It takes its title from the band’s big hit, the ubiquitous “No Rain” – dubbed by Kurt Loder the “feel good video of the Nineties” – a sunny-vibing song not exactly characteristic of the alt-rock band’s gloomier catalog mixing Southern rock, psychedelia, and Seattle grunge.) It’s no small feat, the film and sound edit the filmmakers manage to massage out of the 250 hours of raw video footage Hoon left behind. But proximity does not automatically produce insight, and watching his piss circle the drain is probably something only super-fans are interested in. Could Hoon have guessed his private moments would be mined for public consumption? Poignantly, you get the impression he let the camera roll sometimes just for the company.

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