One of our favorite movies of 2009 — actually a film we listed in our 2008 Best Of list because we saw it so early — is the incredible underdog documentary, “Anvil The Story of Anvil” that charts the difficult and Sisyphean career of the Canadian metal band Anvil.
They brushed fame in the ’80s, pre thrash metal (Metallica, Slayer, etc.), but then were largely forgotten. However, forged on for twenty years regardless and the documentary, directed by Sacha Gervasi, is a hilarious and touching portrait of their dogged perseverance in the face of total indifference. They play shit clubs, they have horrible day jobs, they’re in their ’50s and they’re still sludging away. The doc is incredible and the coda of this story is that the awareness of the film and band has helped them receive the recognition that’s eluded them for two decades.
They’ve opened for AC/DC, been on Conan, Leno, done the entire late-night circuit and Michel Gondry, evidently so inspired by the film, cast them in a cameo in his upcoming project, “The Green Hornet” starring Seth Rogen.
It feels like there’s an additional cherry added on top of their tale every few months, slowly, but surely and another has arrived today. The International Documentary Association’s 2009 IDA Documentary Awards were announced and “Anvil! The Story of Anvil” scored a nomination in the Best Feature documentary category. There’s been talk that ‘Anvil’ could even score an Oscar doc nomination, so maybe this is the first step? God, that would be so amazing and so deserved. Counting our fingers on that one even if right now it seems a bit of a dark horse.
Other films scoring documentary feature nominations include, “Afghan Star,” “Diary of a Times Square Thief,” “Food, Inc.” (which does feel like a logical lock for an Oscar nomination) and “Mugabe and the White African” (the big glaring omission is Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story”). Here’s a clip of Sacha Gervasi explaining Anvil’s appearance in “The Green Hornet.” “In true Anvil tradition even though they’re blown up [in the film], they keep playing,” Gervasi laughed. He also notes that the band have finally given up their catering jobs. Nice, onwards and upwards.