Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Chris_Docker I believe this film has some good things going for it, but within narrow parameters. So I will try to define those, as I see them, and you can decide to make the effort to see it yourself (or not).The screening I went to was greatly enhanced (in my opinion) by an introduction by Nico's biographer, who had also interviewed everybody appearing in the film. He explained that, when Warhol had been persuaded to take on the management of a nightclub – and a rock band (that band being the Velvet Underground), one of the first things he did was get Nico onboard as a lead singer. Another thing he did was decide to have some film projected behind the band as they were performing onstage. To that end, he filmed them jamming – vanilla footage of about seventy minutes. This is what this film was intended for.Now it will appeal to die-hard Velvet Underground fans cos if you are a fan you can never get enough of your favourite band. But casual listeners might not be quite so thrilled. You probably know a track called Sister Ray - this is a song by the band that has a few opening lyrics and then a long (instrumental) jam session. Well, if you were to cut out the lyrics and extended the jam for over an hour that's more or less what you've got here. No famous songs. No-one sings in it. But the Velvet Underground brand of jamming can get quite hypnotic. If you're in the mood (with or without drugs) you can probably dig it and really get into it.A second group it might appeal to is those people who are interested in film history – either professionally or from a deep interest in film. If you think of the original remit (a backing film for a live performance) and think how much money and techno-wizardry would probably be expended on that today, and then look at this . . . Well I think you might agree that it is very effective at very little cost. Watching it in the originally intended setting would be exceedingly cool. Much better than a film of them doing specific tracks (which might clash with the onstage stuff) or something technically complicated (which would possibly distract). It was a good idea that could perhaps usefully be employed by band promoters today. It gives a whole new dimension to the idea of a music video, and a very simple one at that.A third group it will appeal to is dedicated Warhol fans and historians. How often do you get a chance to glimpse inside one of his workplaces? This film is shot in his first 'Factory' and is a nice down-and-dirty view, complete with police walking in towards the end to get them to turn the noise down (following complaints from neighbours). You can have fun spotting the various personalities and also maybe (as I did) comparing the camera techniques with those used in Chelsea Girls.I don't see it really appealing to anyone else, but I may have missed something. At any rate, this is minimalist film at its best, exploring technique in the 60's when there was so much waiting to be explored and Warhol was determined to explore (and exploit) it. I admired and enjoyed it. A lot of people didn't.

InjunNose Certainly not the best introduction to the Velvet Underground, this extended, monotonal jam filmed at Andy Warhol's Factory still has hints of the band's weird, fractured magic. It's difficult to watch (god, that "cinematography"!) but footage of the Velvets is so scarce that any true fan will gladly watch this film time and time again. After all, where else can you see Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Moe Tucker in their black leather and sunglasses? (They didn't look like this in the 1993 reunion film!) Aside from scraping one of Warhol's palette knives against the strings of Cale's bass, Nico doesn't really contribute much, but that's okay. The music sounds similar to the instrumental sections of 'Run Run Run' and 'European Son (To Delmore Schwartz)' on the band's first album. There are no vocals. Listen to the first two records by the Velvets--"The Velvet Underground and Nico" and "White Light/White Heat"--and you'll be able to appreciate the film much more keenly.

jesusatan2001 I just recently saw a film print of this for the first time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Warhol retrospective a few weeks ago and was floored. If you are an artist or a musician, or both, then this is a particularly important film to see. It exists as the perfect time-capsule of 1966 in the Warhol Factory and completely lacks pretension. Even though it's original intention was to be wall paper (un-edited, moving images of The Velvet Underground, projected onto themselves as they actually played live), it still managed to take me though just about my entire range of emotions. Throughout the course of the film I thought about life, death, art, love, sex, and nearly everything in between. If you are expecting a concert film, think again...If you are lucky enough to find it, watch it with an open mind.

fidel-2 Even ardent fans of the velvet underground will probably move uneasily in their chairs during this picture. The movie includes everything, except for a VU performance. The band IS there, and they are playing, but it is an incoherent jam session from hell rather then something familiar. Warhol accompanies the music with repeating focus shifts, lighting experiments, bizarre camera movements, etc., all of which combined create an hypnotic trance-like effect, not to be forgotten soon. Warhol also chooses to let only the diegtic sound from the amplifiers be heard, and thus whole sequences, such as the cops who arrive to stop the show on account of various complaints from neighbors, remain unheard and eluded to instead of crudely "shown". This is a revolutionary experiment in rock videos, even in today's standards.