Meet Me in the Bathroom

Meet Me in the Bathroom

23/1/2022 1h 48m 5.7/10

Overview

Set against the backdrop of 9/11, this documentary tells the story of how a new generation kickstarted a musical rebirth for New York City that reverberated around the world.

Director

Dylan Southern

Top Billed Cast

Adam Green

Adam Green

Self - The Moldy Peaches

Julian Casablancas

Julian Casablancas

Self - The Strokes (voice) (archive sound)

Kimya Dawson

Kimya Dawson

Self - The Moldy Peaches

Karen O

Karen O

Self - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Albert Hammond Jr.

Albert Hammond Jr.

Self - The Strokes (voice) (archive sound)

Nick Zinner

Self - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Reviews

CinemaSerf

CinemaSerf

1/13/2024

6/10

Not that it's exactly comparable, but I grew up very much amidst a folk music scene with loads of extremely mediocre working-class musicians - ballad singers, guitarists, fiddlers etc., who all thought they would go on to some sort of musical greatness. Watching this, it's good to know that those ridiculous pipe dreams were not just confined to Glasgow in the 1970s. Spool on to the early naughties and we are presented with a collection of "musicians" living in Yew York City with aspirations that in the vast majority of cases way outstripped their talents. The one exceptions is probably Julian Casablancas, who managed with "The Strokes" to get his head above the parapet of bland noisemaking, and here the documentary is quite potent at illustrating that the stresses of achieving and building on success are actually just as tough as those involved in getting noticed in the first place. On a more generic level, it does point out how tough this industry is, how hard people work to achieve little better than a subsistence existence and at just how transitory and fickle it all can be, but I did tire a little of the also-rans who whined on about sexploitation and objectification as if they'd had been living under a rock for most of their lives. They dreamt of success and acknowledgement in an industry that was/is riddled with sexualisation and somehow it came as a shock to them - pissed and stoned as they invariably were. Real talent is the best fast-track to initiate meaningful and lasting change. It's an interesting fly-on-the-wall style of production with loads of archive, busily edited to leave us with an authentic-looking view on the lives of these people, but I felt most of them really had no idea what they were doing and the fact that 9/11 occurred midway through the chronology of the narrative seemed merely designed to attempt to bedrock this otherwise flighty and shallow assessment of a music industry that took me back to those nights in the pub, with the folk singers who sounded great after eight pints, but who had no shelf-life beyond that!

Similar Movies

School of Rock

7.1

School of Rock

2003

World Trade Center

6.1

World Trade Center

2006

Fahrenheit 9/11

7.1

Fahrenheit 9/11

2004

A Mighty Heart

6.4

A Mighty Heart

2007

A World Without Beethoven?

7.7

A World Without Beethoven?

2020

The Forty-Year-Old Version

6.7

The Forty-Year-Old Version

2020

Long Live Rock... Celebrate the Chaos

6.7

Long Live Rock... Celebrate the Chaos

2021

What Did You Expect: The Archers of Loaf Live at Cat's Cradle

0.0

What Did You Expect: The Archers of Loaf Live at Cat's Cradle

2012

The Capote Tapes

6.6

The Capote Tapes

2021

P!nk: All I Know So Far

7.7

P!nk: All I Know So Far

2021

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

8.7

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

2023

Johnny Hallyday - Rester Vivant Tour

9.3

Johnny Hallyday - Rester Vivant Tour

2016

Super Duper Alice Cooper

7.1

Super Duper Alice Cooper

2014

The Darkness – Permission to Land... Again

0.0

The Darkness – Permission to Land... Again

2023

Your War (I'm One of You): 20 Years of Joan of Arc

0.0

Your War (I'm One of You): 20 Years of Joan of Arc

2017

Queens of Drama

8.4

Queens of Drama

2024

Mozart's Sister

0.0

Mozart's Sister

2024

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

6.7

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

2006