Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

LCShackley I was captivated by Moog synthesizers at age 12, when "Switched On Bach" was released. I've read many things by and about Bob Moog over the years, and was looking forward to seeing this documentary. But sadly, it's a missed opportunity. First of all, the video quality looks like an 8mm home movie from the 1970s, rather than a 2004 production. Secondly, it's very amateurishly done. For instance, when you have Bernie Worrell, Rick Wakeman, and Moog together to talk about synths, do you think you could possibly pull them into a quiet room, instead of holding a 10-minute interview in a busy hallway with so much background noise that the voices are hardly audible? There are interesting bits here, including archive footage of the Moog assembly line and Gershon "Popcorn" Kingsley with his Moog Quartet. But there's a lot of BAD synth music too, and poor visuals. If you're a die-hard Moog fan like myself, you'll put up with it. If you're not, skip it.

anchovyd This film calls itself a documentary but it documents nothing. Look I play keys and have a Moog. I love the old modular recordings with W. Carlos and D. Hyman and of course all the stuff that was done with the Minimoog. I wanted to learn more about how Moog came about, the competition, how the company went out of business, what he did from the late 70's when he left Moog to when he started Big Briar and the new Moog Music in the late 90's, etc. It also would've been cool to have interviews with some iconic Moog players, like Bernie Worrell, Chick Corea, Dick Hyman, Wendy Carlos, Wakeman, Emerson and the like.Instead it looks like we get a director who just ran his camera for a hour or so at Moog's factory, Moog's victory garden, and backstage at a Moogfest concert picking up banter between Moog, WOO, and Wakeman, a reminiscing with Emerson and a few whacked out bay area groups making weird noises with there Moogs.Even though it runs about an hour, I had to break it up into two viewing sessions because it was so boring. What sucks is that Moog is an interesting guy, the history of his company is a great story and the iconic Moog artists all mostly colorful characters. This director had a goldmine on his hands and could've made a fantastic, compelling, awesome, movie where you are entertained and actually learned something. Instead, he squandered his opportunity and made a real snoozer of a film.Someone from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to confiscate this director's camera. They must have a hyperactive hall monitor over there who'd be willing to do it for mankind. I mean this doesn't need to be The King of Kong or a long drawn out Ken Burns doc, just somewhere in between.If you love synths and Moogs, this is of some interest as it shows Moog as a down to earth nice guy and it is worth a viewing. If you aren't to interested in the subject though don't even bother, it is a boring stinker.

bob the moo Although I'm not a massive fan of electronic music but I have sufficient interest in the genre to check out this documentary on the inventor of the electronic synthesizer, Robert Moog. Watching this film was probably not the best way to try and find out more about the man, the instrument and its impact. As many others on this internet site have already pointed out, director Hans Fjellestad does a really average job of doing anything in this film.The one thing he does appear to be good at selling himself to potential subjects because the film does have a reasonably good array of people on hand to discuss what they do with it and particularly Fjellestad has Moog pretty much on tap throughout the film. It looks like the plan has been to point the camera at whoever is talking, film it and work out the detail in the edit. Sometimes that works and of course with reality shows and the like that is pretty much all you can do but in the vast majority of cases it is a recipe for disaster. So it is here in a film that lacks structure to the point that if Moog wants to ramble endlessly while pottering round his garden then that makes the cut but hardly anytime can be found for many artists that one would associate with the synthesizer. OK, maybe rights to the music or access to the artists was an issue due to the low budget but this is not much of an excuse.Astonishingly the film is barely over an hour long and it is testament to how poor it is that it feels like it never ends. God help us if we ever see an extended cut of this because imagine the footage that they didn't feel worthy of making it into this version! Anyway, I stuck with it but ultimately there is almost nothing of value here; my mind was open to learning more about the impact this instrument had had but it falls down in this regard with a lack of structure and aim that must be laid right at the doors of the director and producers. A totally missed opportunity.

tb1967 This is an unfortunately terrible documentary. It's boring and tedious, and does very little to tell me much about the instrument or its inventor. It seems like the director didn't really even bother to edit the film at all, presenting a collection of rambling, nonsensical "conversations" between Moog & various musicians, or semi-relevant ramblings with Moog by himself. It really is unfortunate, because he seems like an incredibly intriguing & intelligent person, but is presented in such an uninteresting way that seems to indicate that the director not only doesn't really care about him, but doesn't really care much about music in general. There are scenes where Moog is talking about the sounds the instrument can make, and the musician's options in terms of how they can manipulate the sounds, but the director doesn't bother to insert any "examples" during that scene, making it actually aggravating to watch. I found most of the various performances not really all that interesting to watch, either, as some of them barely showed the artist using the Moog (Stereolab) or focused more on other musicians in the performance (Money Mark's d.j.) I also really didn't learn much about Moog's life, or the real history & development of the instrument. It may have only been 70 minutes long, but i was barely able to sit through the whole thing. It really doesn't do the man justice in the least. If you want to see a great documentary about an inventor of an incredibly influential electronic instrument, watch THEREMIN. Not only is THEREMIN incredibly informative, but also rather touching. Truly a beautiful documentary.