mbventuri One fight here and another one there. Creative/Ego arguments within the band. Some well shot concert appearances (that are tedious if you don't appreciate the music). And that's pretty much it. If you don't like Wilco there is not much to see here. The director does his job well but since the band's creative process to release an album is so shallow, it is hard to keep up with the film. There is not much character study with the exception of some clashes between Jeff, the vocalist, and Jay in the beginning of the film. This doc is only worth watching for its cinematography and ironic industry turns when the album is ready to be released.

Frank Longley This is one of my favorite movies. Excellent camera work, excellent sound (which, if you're going to do a movie about a band, please get the sound right--and they do).I do wish it would have followed up a little more on Jay Bennett, however. While he's not the most likable guy in the world, I feel like he got a bit short-shrifted in the end. Which is a shame, because he obviously at one time meant a lot to the band on a personal level.The scenes of Wilco in the studio are fantastic, however. The shows suffer a little bit from limited camera angles, but the songs totally rock.Great movie, even better on DVD (lots and lots of extras).

Jacob Rosen Documentarian Sam Jones is in the right place at the right time as he captures the Chicago-based alternative country band Wilco as they struggle both internally and with their record label. The result is a reasonably compelling look at how a band grows through the process of creating and negotiating, if not necessarily in the ways anyone associated with the process had envisioned. Those only casually familiar with Wilco might be surprised to find that their ostensible leader, singer-songwriter Jeff Tweedy, is far more collaborative than the recorded music suggests and that the band is comfortable sharing input in a loose, respectful manner; but multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett seems to want to diffuse the camaraderie by getting hung-up on semantics, involving Tweedy in long, drawn-out debates that point directly to Bennett's insecurities and apparent desire to over-communicate. (After Bennett leaves the band, the group seems prepared--even eager--to move on and it's apparent that Bennett had trouble connecting with the other band members as well.) The enmity between Wilco and their label, Reprise, is more cut-and-dried, with a story you've heard a million times before: profit-minded record label declines to release album by forward-thinking, critically acclaimed musical group; there isn't much new here and the drama plays itself out rather quickly. Where the film truly shines is in capturing the essence of Wilco's live performances. Slow, difficult and somewhat antiseptic on record, in concert they display a sparkle and drive that brings a vibrancy to Tweedy's esoteric, often half-formed musings.

askmike-info A film which is all about the best album of 2002, Sam Jones tells the story of the making of the Wilco album `Yankee Hotel Foxtrot'. Jones had no idea that in the making of this film, Wilco would fire a band member, be dropped by the record label, spend the next year looking for a new label (the joy of this story is that both label were owned by AOL-Time Warner, who essentially paid Wilco for the same album twice), and make one of the greatest albums of the last 3 years. But that's the beauty of this documentary: what begins as a simple story keeps getting tangled up to form one of the best rockumentaries ever made.