Director: Archie Borders
Writers: Archie Borders and David Henry
Cast: John Doe, Aimee Mann, Andy Pyle and Loudon Wainwright
“Pleased to Meet Me” is a wonderful film about people coming together to celebrate the music in their lives. Coming together to celebrate a song allows drug addicts, angry personalities and lovers to find themselves under a single roof. Jamming is so essential to the music scene and when we build to the finale, you feel it in your bones. It’s a hard feeling to describe for a ton of people. Performance dictates sharing the words and feelings with so many others that could reject you. But, no one is rejected by the end of this movie.
I had no idea that the movie shot in Louisville. It looks like they shot at Lalaland, but I’m not surprised that I didn’t hear about the production. In its own way, the film manages to capture the oddity of the music scene here. It thrives in the Derby City, but it also splits into so many interesting niches. I see each of those niches represented on film here and it makes me feel good. I don’t know if director Archie Borders is a local, but he captures the city in a way that Ivan Reitman, Cameron Crowe and Michael Mann all failed to achieve.
The whole push to have these “This American Life” style movies feels trite to me in terms of feeling. But, there does need to be a filter to meet the odd personalities of art types. The film works by making me believe in the relationships onscreen. That being said, I wouldn’t try to take another bite at the apple. Music can carry you so far, but some people are going to keep poking holes as to why these guys got together. It doesn’t matter to me, I loved it.
RELEASE DATE: 04/18/2014