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‘Pavements’ Review: Alex Ross Perry Plays With Passion in a Genre-Defying Ode to ’90s Band Known for Disaffection
Alex Ross Perry's genre-defying rock doc is a worthy tribute to the Stephen Malkmus-led band that cultivated a fierce following outside the mainstream.
In Alex Ross Perry ’s exuberant tribute to Pavement, Tim Heidecker gives a succinct descriptor of what made the band a staple of college radio stations in the ‘90s: “For kids who thought everything was stupid and everything sucked, they were your band.” In an era when rock stars gave up hours doing big hair in the makeup chair to instead wear the flannel they walked in off the street with, the band, fronted by Stephen Malkmus, cultivated a fan base that cared quite a bit when they looked like they didn’t care much at all, standing out in the grunge period for their ironic detachment and a general lack of pretense that belied the sophistication of their songcraft. Malkmus, by nature, appears to be a pretty mellow central figure and the only major contretemps in Pavement’s history involved letting go of their first drummer and an infamous Lollapalooza performance which ended with flipping off the crowd after being pelted in mud. Nonetheless, “Pavements” dazzles as a spinning plates act where Perry and longtime editor Robert Greene can cross-cut or split-screen “Woodstock”-style for propulsion, gaining real insight from juxtaposing the fiction-based interpretations of the band in the present with more mundane scenes from when it was all actually happening.
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