Anvil! The Story of Anvil

< Previous Trailer  |   Add to My Scrapbook  |   Next Trailer >
Anvil! The Story of Anvil

89% Liked It
liked it

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Glenn Gyorffy, Kevin Goocher, Robb Reiner, Steve Kudlow, Tiziana Arrigoni, William Howell

At fourteen years old, best friends Lips and Robb Reiner made a pact to rock together forever. Their band Anvil, hailed as the “demi-gods of Canadian metal,” influenced a musical generation including ...( read more  read more... )Met­allica, Slayer and Anthrax. Though Anvil never made it, they never stopped playing or believing. Following a calamitous European tour, Lips and Robb, now well into their fifties, set off to record their thirteenth album, “This is Thirteen,” in one last attempt to fulfill their boyhood dream.

Id: 11003132

Do you want to see this movie?

My Friends Said...

Anvil! The Story of Anvil Recent Reviews

Register or sign-in to see your friends' reviews !

Recent Reviews

Anvil! The Story of Anvil Recent Reviews
  • Beefy
    October 17, 2009
    Beefy
    Boy does it feel good to give a movie four stars again! Funny, touching, and unexpectedly life affirming, this documentary had a smile on my face almost the entire time. Even if you're not interested in metal music, dont' let it deter you from seeing this film. It will make yo...( read more)u feel pretty darn good.
  • YLOWBSTARDreturns
    October 12, 2009
    YLOWBSTARDreturns
    Heartfelt, funny, and passionate... "Anvil: The Story of Anvil" is a spectacular documentary about one band's 30 year quest of making the big time. It's also one of the most inspiring documents ever captured on film, and one of the greatest films about rock music and the music in...( read more)dustry. Not to be missed.
  • garyX
    September 14, 2009
    garyX
    A documentary following the metal band Anvil, who fell by the wayside when so many of their contemporaries made it big, it would have been easy to make this film from a sneering, derogatory standpoint; let's face it, men in their 50s in perms and spandex are an easy target. But r...( read more)ather than treat them as a figure of fun, this inspiring film is more about a group of people choosing to follow and never give up on their dream. Lips (!) is such an honest and big-hearted person that you cannot help but warm to him and his attitude of spending his life doing what he loves, no matter what other people think. You don't have to be a metal fan to appreciate it; I myself do like my rock music, but to be honest, Anvil are pretty bad anyway! But that's not the point. There are times when you can't help but laugh, but it's an affectionate film that will probably invite comparisons with This Is Spinal Tap, but I personally felt it was more like a more upbeat version of The Wrestler. Quite life affirming in its own, offbeat way and I hope that this goes some way to help them fulfil their dream at least in some small part.
  • gor41
    June 26, 2009
    gor41
    Touching tale of 'believing in the dream' and male bonding with a great 'odd couple' relationship at its heart. Beats Metallica's similar documentary because the leads are far more likeable and endearing.
  • her69eyes
    May 25, 2009
    her69eyes
    Middle-aged rockers struggle to regain the spotlight in "Anvil! The Story the Anvil".

    Don't fret if the band name doesn't ring any bells. Although highly successful and influential in the 80's, Anvil, the hair metal group from Toronto, has vanished largely into obscurity. When ...( read more)I first heard of the film, I thought it was a mockumentary. Then, to my surprise, the film opens with evidence of Anvil in their heyday with accompanying praise by some of the most elite rockers in heavy metal - Lars Ulrich, Slash, Lemmy Kilmister, and Scott Ian. Anvil was very much a big deal.

    Director Sacha Gervasi was a longtime fan of Anvil - so passionate, in fact, that he was a roadie for them in the 80's. Following his success as a screenwriter for films like "The Terminal" and "The Big Tease", he tracked down the hair rockers to see where they are now. Needless to say, life is not as glamorous as it used to be.

    As the film opens, we see Anvil performing in front of thousands in Japan. Steve "Lips" Kudlow, in bondage gear, plays a guitar solo with a vibrator. Fans scream along: "metal on metal". Then Gervasi cuts to modern day Lips Kudlow. He's delivering school lunches. The lead singer, once in front of thousands of screaming fans, now struggles to remember the weekly menu. Although the most obvious comparison to "Anvil! The Story of Anvil" is "This is Spinal Tap!", it's story is eerily reminiscent Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler". Try to watch Kudlow without thinking about Randy the Ram.

    Lips, despite never attaining the success he deserved, is not a pessimist. He has a wonderful family, a loyal best friend in his long time drummer, Robb Reiner, and he mentions that although life can be tough it's all worth it when he gets to perform. We meet two middle-aged loyal fans after a performance in a dingy bar citing that they've seen Anvil hundreds of times. There's a film to make about them, as well.

    One of the remaining passionate Anvil fans is Tiziana Arrigoni, a promoter from Sweden. She books the band a European tour, however she's inexperienced, incompetent, and utterly out-of-her-league. On the tour they get stiffed on their pay, miss their trains, and only draw 178 people to a venue that holds 10,000. Although Robb and Lips reach a low point, however, things turn around when they get veteran metal producer Chris Tsangarides to record their 13th album with a financial assist from Lips' sister. One of the most touching moments of the film is when Lips, having been loaned the money to record his album, realizes the importance of family.

    The best thing about "Anvil!" is that it isn't condescending. The film, in fact, admires Lips and Reiner's unbreakable will and determination. Although the film has many laughs, more than any film this year, it's never laughing at the expense of it's subjects.

    The film was released at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, therefore i'm not sure what to make of it's eligibility in a "Best of 2009" list - but, one things for sure, it's the best new film i've seen so far this year.
  • johnehsmith
    November 7, 2009
    johnehsmith
    Excellent film. Enjoyed every minute of it. There was hardly nothing to dislike about this wonderful 90 minute Rockumentary about a down on its luck Canadian metal band of aging rockers.

    Oscarworthy for best documentary I havent enjoyed a film this much in a while, its funny, he...( read more)artwarming, interesting and just the right length!

    I think this might be my first 5 star film.

    There are times that you think something might have been staged, but the honesty which Steve Lips Kudlow and Robb Reiner confront the making of this film is fascinating to watch. There are tears, laughter, fights, disappointments and anger. Perhaps its because they are Canadian that I liked them that little bit more, I don't know.

    One thing, I hope they do well out of this, they deserve it.
  • odonoghuematthew
    November 4, 2009
    odonoghuematthew
    The (serious) spinal tap of 09. =Best Documentary of 2009=
  • Dracula787
    October 31, 2009
    Dracula787
    This documentary (or rather, rockumentary) depicts the Canadian heavy metal band Anvil which achieved moderate success in the 80s, the film picks up with the band at a crossroads after twenty years of failure. The movie shows the band embarking on a pretty lousy European tour th...( read more)ey commenced after taking a vacation from their day jobs. After this they are shown cutting their thirteenth album and trying to sell it to major labels. Many have compared this to This is Spinal Tap, which is misleading first because it?s a genuine documentary about a real band and secondly because it isn?t very funny. Of course the movie does invite this comparison when it chooses to focus on a dial being turned to eleven and on a trip the band takes to Stonehenge, but perhaps the better film to compare it to is Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, which shows a significantly more successful band dealing with a ton of comparable problems. I think a lot of the appeal this movie has had plays into a certain sense of nostalgic entitlement that could also be seen to some extent in films like The King of Kong and The Wrestler, movies which deal with people trying to return to their 80s glory days after years of failure at a cheesy endeavor. As I watched the film I couldn?t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, the band kind of deserves the fate they?ve been dealt. The music played over the course of the movie is not great and the album they?re tying to make sounds really dated, it sounds to me like there?s more involved in the band?s lack of success than the world conspiring against them, these are not thoughts that should be going through your head while watching a movie that so desperately wants to be about underdogs overcoming adversity.
  • markellus
    October 12, 2009
    markellus
    A good documentary of a band that should have had a bigger amount of sucsess than they do. Not my type of music but I was rooting for these guys all through the movie. Will they be able to record a new album? Will they have sucess on a European tour? Will they be able to get a ma...( read more)jor record deal after trying for 20 years? A great example that shows if you are doing what you love, it's not really work.
  • CinemaPlanet
    October 12, 2009
    CinemaPlanet
    Very entertaining rock doc by screenwriter/fan Sacha Gervasi. This one could go all the way to awards season!
View All Reviews

Opening This Week

Top Box Office

Upcoming Movies

New on DVD