We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll

D: Penelope Spheeris (35mm, 90 min.)

If it’s wet, you drink it. If it’s green, you smoke it. And if it’s Ozzfest 1999 and you’re documentarian Penelope Spheeris, you shoot 260 hours of keg stands, firebreathing, topless bullriding, self-mutilation, hairy bare butts, and malapropistic Bible thumpers (“degradated”). Spheeris isn’t afraid to get in harm’s way, and her hands-off interviewing and observing style encourages full disclosure. But the genius of the film is her whip-smart editing style, which weaves skeins of meaning behind the madness with crosscuts and montage. Osbourne is leaner, older, and more sober than he was 13 years ago in Spheeris’s The Decline of Western Civilization II (3/17, 9:45pm, the Alamo), but he’s just as oddly captivating, with his rictus grin, vacant befuddlement, assorted lapdogs, and obsessive fear of telephones and vacuum cleaners. And Spheeris cannily captures salient moments from his marriage to manager Sharon Osbourne (who also backed the film). Highly recommended. (Alamo, 3/17, 5pm)

This article appears in March 16 • 2001.

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