SXSW is a film festival that celebrates the long tail of indie films. The first two documentaries I’ve seen at SXSW have in one way or another focused on the idea of pop-culture escapism. Second Skin took a look at the addicted video gamers that inhabit the online virtual worlds, and now We Are Wizards takes a look at a niche within a niche, Wizard Rock, a musical genre which was born out of the Harry Potter novels.
Harry and the Potters had their first public show in a Boston area library. The geeky duo now tour the country with hundreds of fans attending each show. Wizard Rock was born, and a whole new genre of music was created. We get a glimpse at some of the other bands that make up this weird niche, including The Hungarian Horntails, DJ Luna Lovegood, Draco and the Malfos, and a young brother duo (which was cute for a few moments, but probably should have been cut from the film).
The Wizard Rock stuff was a lot of fun, but the film loses its way by mixing the story of a webmaster of a Harry Potter fansite, and a legal battle between Warner Bros and other fan sites. It’s not that these stories weren’t interesting, they just didn’t fit well with the Wizard Rock material. The documentary has a identity crisis and doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be. It clearly isn’t a documentary about Harry Potter fans, because so many areas of Harry Potter fandom are excluded from this story.
We Are Wizards could be a great documentary if it were 20 or 30 minutes shorter. But the lack of focus is a serious issue.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
March 9th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Long live Wizard Rock! I went to a Harry and the Potters/Draco and the Malfoys concert at my local library last summer and it was great. I’d love to see this documentary.
March 9th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Unrelated and don’t know where to put this but when’s the next fight cast coming out? I really enjoyed the first few.
March 9th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I was a little skeptical of Harry and the Potters at first, but they’re actually good musicians . . . makes you wonder how you’re band can keep playing once the Harry Potter hoopla dies away . . .
http://slyoyster.com/music/2007/voldemort-cant-stop-the-rock/
I don’t think the Mp3 links are around, but I can’t send the tunes to anyone who’s interested…
March 9th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
WOw… Something even geekier than Nerdcore.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:49 pm
This sounds tremendously interesting.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:21 am
This maybe geekier than Nerdcore..
but Trekcore has this beat 10-1
Look up a band called: Warp 11, all they do is sing about Star Trek.