Super Duper Alice Cooper

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source: Super Duper Alice Cooper

So much more to see than just the printed "lives with shell and the kids " etc. Really interesting to watch, just feel it shouldn't have stopped there, even if it were a five minute nod to all the good stuff he has done since. I'm sober now, oh look, cocaine 😅

Review: I really enjoyed this documentary because it is a in-depth look at the life of a rock star who went from a nobody in Detroit to a somebody in California. The look at the pitfalls of fame such as extreme addiction and how is life outside the spotlight. The directing and screenplay are both incredible. The combination from living pictures to concert footage really make this metal documentary very different than any other. All in all I would give this five out of a possible five stars.

Super Duper Alice Cooper (2014): Dir: Sam Dunn, Reginald Harkema, Scot McFadyen / Featuring: Alice Cooper, Dennis Dunaway, Robert Ezrin, Sheryl Cooper: Documentary about one of the most enduring personalities to ever grace the concert stage. Born Vincent Furnier, the son of a pastor, the film narrates through archive footage how music has impacted his childhood with the Beatles bursting on the scene. He gets together with friends to form a band that is simply called Alice Cooper but it became apparent at the cost of his band that Vincent is Alice donned in lace, long shaggy black hair, and heavy black eye makeup. He became celebrated for his extreme stage antics that often included his own hanging or other theatrics such as taking a hatchet to a baby doll on stage. One of his most famous antics is a 1969 concert where he tossed a live chicken into the crowd and it was mangled by those in wheelchairs. Directors Sam Dunn, Reginald Harkema and Scot McFadyen capture the spirit of the performer with well edited sequences featuring Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari but perhaps some face time interviews might have helped. Maybe some more details into albums, charts, and perhaps the origins of specific songs would have been great. It also avoids less talked about areas like adding a theme song to Friday the 13th, Part 6: Jason Lives, or accompanying Jake "the Snake" Roberts to the ring at Wrestlemania 3. Otherwise this is a super duper documentary of unusual form that takes viewers into the mind of one of the industry's most bizarre minds. Score: 9 / 10

Super Duper Alice Cooper (2014) *** 1/2 (out of 4) This here is a highly entertaining documentary taking a look at the Alice Cooper character. Of course, he started out as Vincent Damon Furnier but soon he found himself in a rock and roll band and before long his alter ego became Alice Cooper. Through interviews with him, his wife, his mom, his band, co-writers and his manager we see the rise of the character and the eventual fall. SUPER DUPER ALICE COOPER is something that fans of the singer are going to love for a number of reasons. The biggest is the fact that there's all sorts of great concert material and a lot of it that I hadn't seen before and this is coming from someone who collected bootlegs at one time. The early concert footage of the Alice Cooper Band was fabulous and really made this something special. Another great thing is the fact that so many important people are interviewed (including Elton John talking about a concert he saw of Cooper at the Hollywood Bowl) and they help narrate this story. We get a great overview of the early Alice Cooper stuff including the pre- fame days as well as his time with Frank Zappa. The film's one weakness is the fact that it clocks in at just under 90-minutes and the "Welcome to My Nightmare" era doesn't get talked about until the 57th minute. That tells you that the later portion of the Alice Cooper story is pretty much gone through very quickly and it ends with his comeback special during 1986. Obviously there's a lot of material left out and there's no great discussion of his various albums. With that said, this documentary really does work as a "document" of the Alice Cooper character. Not really the man but the character and it's interesting to see clips from the 1920 version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE shown as a way to show us how Vincent was overtaken by the Alice Cooper character.

Well - Well - Well!.... Surprise! Surprise! Not being at all a fan of Alice Cooper (the band) or Alice Cooper (the manufactured stage persona) - I certainly was all set to dislike this "Jekyll & Hyde" rockumentary, big-time. I really was. And, with that, most likely give this show a measly 2-star rating, at best. But - Hey! - As it turned out - Due to this production having a really talented writing/directing team behind it (who were a trio of Canadian dudes) - I found "Super Duper Alice Cooper" to be genuinely entertaining, for the most part. Yep. This rockumentary was a very slick and polished presentation that moved along smoothly as an impressive and colourful collage of retro film clips. Born Vincent Furnier (1948) - This fast-paced, 85-minute rockumentary told the tale of young Vincent's ambitious rise to rock'n'roll fame as he struggled to be different from all the rest - Eventually morphing into a trashy, theatrical stage personality who promoted sex, death & violence. Ah-yes! But there certainly was a price to be paid for Vincent/Alice's meteoric rise to super-stardom..... Be sure to watch this DVD to find out what price Alice paid for fame & fortune.

Over the last forty-plus years Alice Cooper has found himself answering the same questions in interviews and thus he often repeats the same anecdotes. Thankfully the makers of Super Duper Alice Cooper, two of which were responsible for the excellent documentaries Metal: A Headbanger's Journey and the underrated Global Metal, have decided to approach the subject from a different angle. Instead of following the traditional interview route by merely featuring Cooper on-screen talking about different parts of his career, Cooper himself narrates the story, starting with the formation of his Beatles spoof band the Earwigs in the mid-1960s and their through the brief time as the Spiders, before eventually settling on the name Alice Cooper. Everything is covered here; their arrival in Los Angeles to find a city of free love and LSD, something which they sought to challenge with their outrageous brand of rock 'n' roll; the band's rise to success and how Cooper found himself in the spotlight; the group's split and Cooper's descent into alcoholism as he struggled to keep the character of Alice at bay while launching a solo career. The documentary comes to an end following the Nightmare Returns tour of 1986. Fans may have wished for the filmmakers to continue through his success with Trash and Hey Stoopid, the rediscovery of his faith in the early 1990s and his evolution into heavier metal with Brutal Planet in 2000, but the movie ends on a perfect note so this is not a flaw. Instead of showing the interviewees on-screen, Super Duper Alice Cooper incorporates the technique of animating photographs in a similar way to Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas 2009 documentary American: The Bill Hicks Story, while also including stock footage from classic movies such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, old films of the band and footage taken from TV. This is a unique and entertaining approach to telling the story of an iconic artist that, in one form or another, has been told several times before. Super Duper Alice Cooper is a must for any fan.

A nice cliff notes to his career, but it stops at 1986 choosing the redemption arc over a thorough examination. Some nice footage and uses the soundtrack as another way to tell the story. Worth a watch but not enough to be definitive.

If you wanna know the truth - I have never, ever liked (by one iota) the music nor the grimy, grungy, goofy character of Alice Cooper (that absurd stage persona thought up by Vincent Furnier). Never. To me - Vincent's "Alice" was such an inane and easily dislikable alter-ego, that I'm convinced this bottom-of-the-barrel character could have only been the brain-child of a total buffoon (which, I guess, sums up Furnier). Despite this celebrity-documentary being very well produced and actually featuring some really first-rate graphics - I, personally, do not think Alice Cooper was, in any way, "Super Duper" (as the title suggests). Nope. I think he was a sniveling dweeb, of the highest order. And, with that, I sure wish he'd get his hideous "Maybelline Eyes" right out of my face, once and for all.