Who Knew? THE SPARKS BROTHERS

Some things are just too white even for me who grew up loving all things “mainstream” pop-culture.  But this off-beat stuff just doesn’t enter my purview unless someone makes a movie about it. Like in 2017 when I learned about Tommy Wiseau’s THE ROOM from seeing James Franco’s movie THE DISASTER ARTIST. And now finding out about THE SPARKS BROTHERS because Edgar Wright has made a documentary about this odd duo which makes up the “musical” styling of SPARKS.

Ron and Russell Mael appear to be about as close as two brothers could be without being twins. They seemingly never fight, not over money, fame, women, nothing, They just seem to be of one mind. I’ve never watched a music biopic where no one leaves out for a solo career.  Ron writes the songs and Ron becomes his mouthpiece to perform them. The have a catalog of 300 songs, 25 albums. At the end of the film they joke that they really have only 2 songs, one fast and one slow. But that’s not a joke, I said the same thing halfway through the doc. Whether fast or slow it’s all just awful!  No melody, very few key changes, no bridge, too much repetition, yet you can’t call it the chorus. And decade after decade they earnestly crank out this sound, for lack of a better term, making a few tweaks here and there to keep up with the times. 

It’s also not your typical music biopic cause there’s no surly ex-band members talking about how things went terribly wrong.  Nope all ex-members only have the highest regard for both brothers and their experience with SPARKS on the whole.  Peppered through are interviews with famous fans of the group, like Jane Wiedlin, Patton Oswalt, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino and Jason Schwartzman, all of which I can see “getting”, whatever Sparks is or tried to be.

I’ve been helping to promote a group of Indie female filmmakers (SIFTMedia 215) and what keeps coming up when they’re deciding how to get across an idea in their films is the use of animation, but for me, I think this is typically a hokey idea in most instances; NOT SO for “The Sparks Brothers” the marvelously creative mind that is Edgar Wright’s has captured the most wonderfully wacky and completely Sparks like illustrations to visualize certain parts of the brother’s “rise to fame” from misunderstood US novelty act to finding their tribe in the UK.

The film was financed by MRC Non-Fiction and premiered at Sundance 2020, but I don’t remember hearing about it. Focus Features bought the distribution rights; it’s produced by Wright’s production company Complete Fiction Pictures with his producing partner Nira Park, along with producers George Hencken and Laura Richardson.

I can’t say, I was completely engaged for the full length of the doc. Probably because we don’t get to know much at all about the brother’s private lives. But it’s a great homage for their fans and a good introduction for those like me thinking WTF?  Do stick with it until the end credits when Ron & Russell give a fun run down of their other hobbies and accomplishments.

Tinsel & Tine @LAMB rating: 3 outta 5