Posted: 06/23/2003

Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns

(2002)

by Coco Delgado

Being the documentary film about the two-man band They Might Be Giants, and not the story of how John Holmes met John Leslie…

Chico, California. April, 1990.

It’s a Saturday afternoon, and I wander into a clothing store. As I look at the dresses, the music playing throughout the store starts to register. I had never heard songs so…quirky…before. Then Particle Man started playing. I asked the shopgirl who the band was. “They Might Be Giants,” she told me, after looking at the tape case.

I didn’t buy anything there that day. But I did go straight to the local record store and bought a copy of “Flood.” On vinyl. I was hooked.

I still am. So I was eager to see Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns when it finally made it to Cambridge.

The thing about band documentaries is, if you love the band, you’ll love the movie. If you don’t like or don’t know the band, you’ll wonder why you spent so much money to be so bored. With a band like They Might Be Giants, this is intensified about a hundredfold.

They Might Be Giants (TMBG) has always appealed to a geek sensibility. They write songs about…whatever occurs to them, employing ironic, wry lyrics to get their sometimes odd points across. They also have, in their extensive catalogue, songs about James K. Polk, James Ensor, the Sun, and mammals. And since their songs are mainly about things like nightlights and bangs, and rarely if ever romantic, TMBG has some of best breakup music ever…but they’re not a band for everyone, and people either love or loathe them.

The two Johns, Linnell (the duo’s creative genius, accordion and keyboard player, and the “Lennon” of the pair) and Flansburgh (the impresario, guitar player and the “McCartney” of the pair) have been together for over 20 years, and it’s fun to see them relate to each other. They finish each others’ sentences. They speak with glances. They are like an old married couple. You could see the pair played by John Turturro and Steve Buscemi in the movie of their life, if it wasn’t already a documentary.

No aspect of their lengthy career is left unexplored in the almost two hours of film. Celebrities such as Michael McKean, Harry Shearer and Janeane Garofalo read song lyrics in deadpan monotones. The dark side of their lyrics is discussed in great detail. The history of Dial-a-Song (which is still active to this day in Brooklyn at 718-387-6926), their start in the Village and their early videos on MTV, and recording their latest album “Mink Car” (which, in a Brooklyn-meets-New Jersey moment of surreality, they are shown working on with Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger)…it’s all here in great detail. There’s also some footage of a CD release in-store concert at a Manhattan record store…at Midnight, September 10, 2001. There’s even a discourse on the great debt owed by the band to coffee.

There’s quite a lot of talking head action of friends and affiliates of the band reminiscing, which is much less interesting than seeing early footage of the Johns performing and hearing them discuss their memories and motivations (which they do, on the waterfront in Brooklyn, sitting in old armchairs with the Manhattan skyline in the background). Which there’s also quite a lot of.

And which is fascinating to the fans, and about as exciting as paint drying to everyone else.

Of course, me…I’m a fan. I even got to meet John Flansburgh last year, and get a CD autographed, which was pretty much a highpoint in my fangirl career.

I will never see myself in the mirror with my eyes closed.

Coco Delgado lives in Cambridge-Somerville and always sits in the front row. Her 2003 New Years resolution is to see more than the 66 movies she saw last year.

Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com