Henry Rollins: Up For It (2001)
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Nikki Parsons
Written by Henry Rollins

Features:

• Interview with Rollins
  
• Featurette regarding Nice, the latest Rollins Band album
  
• Music Video for "Your Number is One" by Rollins Band
  
• Audio excerpts from A Rollins in the Wry, his latest spoken-word release
  

Anamorphic: Yes.

My Advice: Own It.

Henry Rollins, when he's fronting his band, is a terrorizing musical machine. Clad only in black shorts and his body pumped beyond all reason and riddled with tattoos, he seems like the kind of person who could snap you in half merely by looking at you the wrong way. However, as I discovered at the first live show I went to see upon moving to Coast City, when he's on stage doing his spoken word gigs, he is funny as hell. Not only that, but he is well-read, well-travelled, and just an all-around renaissance man. This disc contains the tail end of his last spoken word tour, and was recorded in London. I last saw him several years ago, where in that aforementioned concert, he did three and a half hours straight of hilarious insanity. It's obvious, though I haven't seen him perform since, he's only gotten better with time.

The only thing that can be said about the feature itself is that an hour and thirty five minutes is almost not enough to get a complete dose of Rollins' humor and insight. When he puts out spoken word albums, they're normally two disc sets. I'd love to start seeing some two-DVD sets of his live stuff as well. Luckily, one of the best features on the disc is a series of several audio excerpts from Rollins' latest spoken word release, A Rollins in the Wry. While the feature itself covers such eyebrow-raising topics as Rollins' experiments with "wang punishment" and his recipe for destroying the Klan, the audio bits include the truth about men and women as well as how to have fun at your local Rite Aid. The only problem with the audio is that the bit about men and women is presented both intact and then split into two different parts. It's not that long to begin with, so why they felt they had to split it up AND leave the full version on there is a little puzzling. It's a minor annoyance, though.

The interview that's included on the disc isn't what I would consider an interview. It's a series of video bits of Rollins pontificating about various subjects as turning forty or having children. It's far removed from the manic act he performs on stage, but there's no back and forth I would think of as an interview. Still, it's a nice little tidbit to let you get inside the head of this gonzo maniac. And appreciated.

Beyond that, the featurette regarding the Rollins Band album is interesting, although it relies a bit too heavily on wild MTVesque pan shots over stills or weird camera angles, as if the cinematographer had just ingested about 700mg of caffeine. But still, it has its moments of humor and insight into what the band thinks of being a band and what Rollins thinks of crushing things musically.

The music video...well, let me just say this. I haven't found a Rollins Band album as destructively captivating as Weight, but that's probably because my psychosis at the time keyed me in to that particular album in a frightening way. And the song itself of "Your Number is One" feels really repetitive, unhelped by the fact that Rollins has to sometimes struggle to get an overabundance of syllables into portions of more than one verse. Still, the video is good for the video's sake, but again, not a big fan of the song here.

For pretty much everyone, I'd recommend at least renting this sucker and giving it a watch. Rollins is a great presence and a terrific stand-up comedian/spoken word genius. For people who are already fans, then it's definitely worth buying. Rollins continues to be an absolute hoot to follow.