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Cannes, France —Jim Jarmusch’s Iggy and the Stooges documentary “Gimmie Danger” energized Cannes audiences with a plethora of never-before-seen photos and clips of the Detroit band whose lasting influence continues to this day.
Whether you’re a well-versed Stooges fan or new to the music, “Gimmie Danger” will rock you. Here’s proof that Iggy is still God, and the Stooges were the baddest rock ‘n’ roll band around.
Still, the doc is far from perfect. The re-teamed Stooges ending feels tacked on. As well, we don’t get to hear Iggy tell any of the many notoriously filthy stories from his litany of outré antics over a career of more than six decades.
Iggy fans love to pass around stories about things like Iggy jacking off in a dressing room mirror to indoctrinate a new young roadie, or about Iggy panhandling in front of a liquor store in San Diego just minutes after stepping offstage from a gig there during his Arista years. And of course there are the many stories of on-stage blowjobs from Iggy’s ardent female fans.
If only Jarmusch had gotten each interviewee (Iggy included) to recount their most outrageous Iggy Pop story, the doc would have become the stuff of instant legend.
To put it in Iggy terms, there isn’t any grit to the doc, and somebody forgot the whine. The problem with this doc is that it never lets loose or gets dangerous. If there’s anything that is part and parcel to an Iggy Pop show is that he gets so loose and dangerous that you can’t believe you’re in the same room witnessing this amazing performance.
I’ll come clean. I saw Iggy on the “Blah Blah Blah” tour in San Francisco on Halloween in 1986, with Alien Sex Fiend as his backing band. When Iggy hit the stage in a leather jacket doing Sister Midnight, the audience (myself included) lost our minds. It was as if a wild animal had been unleashed and no one could control it. The smell of fear, and sex, and wild abandon was too much to withstand unless you agreed to go along with this rock ‘n’ roll release. James Brown (who I’ve also seen live) had nothing on Iggy Pop.
For his Cannes premiere red-carpet appearance, Iggy wore a blue suit with no shirt underneath. Cool man. Really fucking cool.
Not Rated. 108 mins.
