One-Liners: Psych Rock

SOME KIND OF MONSTER (2004) (A-minus) - Put a metal band on a psychiatrist's couch and you get a miasma of neuroses and rock-star arrogance. Here, then, more than a decade ago, was Metallica, unplugged and unmasked.

Metal gods James Hetfield (guitar, vocals) and Lars Ulrich (drums) do their best Lennon-McCartney impressions from "Let It Be," persistently pushing each other's buttons and making you wonder how they ever formed a band to begin with. As the band enters the studio to begin work on a new album, Hetfield teeters on the brink of a breakdown, testing the patience of Ulrich, who takes gum-snapping to epic heights. It would take a year to finish laying down the tracks for "St. Anger," released in 2003.

Chiming in as the voice of reason is longtime producer Bob Rock, who stepped in as studio bassist after the band lost Jason Newsted in a fallout. Mostly on the sidelines is guitarist Kirk Hammett, who represents either the George Harrison character or the child of feuding parents. Hammett's simpleton demeanor must make Ulrich pull his hair out at other times.

The great hook here is Phil, the band's "personal enhancement coach," charging them tens of thousands of dollars a month for some group therapy sessions that serve only to drive Ulrich further up a wall. To note the obvious, comparisons to "This Is Spinal Tap," the mockumentary released 20 years before this, are unavoidable. This is juicy fly-on-the wall stuff, from their group lyric-writing sessions -- like high school freshmen with their spiral notebooks and pedantic rhyme schemes -- to failed vocal experiments.

The boys live cloyingly bourgeois soccer-dad lifestyles. Ulrich is an obnoxious art snob. (He comes off as both a prickly know-it-all and a practical bullshit detective.) Hammett is Jeff Spicoli at middle age. And Hetfield, after returning from his months-long dry-dock, can't make the simplest of recording decisions without worrying about the smallest of "triggers" that might lead to a relapse. He is both achingly human and wildly insufferable.

Veteran documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky leave no stone unturned, deftly knitting this together in a surprisingly snappy 2 hours 21 minutes. They eventually corral Dave Mustaine for a cameo -- he was the original lead guitarist who was unceremoniously dumped over substance-abuse issues and 20 years later was still waiting for an explanation and apology. (He went on to form rival Megadeth.) We also see the auditioning of bassists, leading to the hiring of the manic Robert Trujillo for the subsequent tour. (The multimillion-dollar package they offer him is straight out of a Fortune 500 portfolio.)

This is juicy stuff, an inside peek at the cartoonish life of pompous rock stars. Not to be missed.

WE ARE X (C) - This moody documentary about the insanely popular metal band from Japan is an unfortunate downer, which is understandable, considering the history of the group.

Unable to capture the Beatlemania spark that made them legends and would have elevated this to watchable, director Stephen Kijak doodles with camera flourishes and dawdles with story lines that lead to dead ends. Instead, we're treated to ponderous profiles of moderately interesting pop stars, interspersed with preparations for X Japan's comeback show at Madison Square Garden.

The big gun is Yoshiki, a rock legend of Lennonesque proportions, the Muppet-like drummer who needs to wear a neck brace when he plays and who collapses like James Brown at the end of every show. (His shtick is probably only partially showbiz and otherwise attributable to a lifelong asthma affliction.) Lead singer Toshi gives Journey's Steve Perry a run for his money when it comes to belting out over-the-top anthems.

Despite or because of their rabid popularity, these sensitive guys swirl through vortexes of depression. If you don't know the fate of the band members over the years -- and I didn't -- don't ruin it; it's quite chilling, as the film spirals deeper into darkness in the second half.

Yoshiki, a lifelong spiritual seeker haunted by the childhood trauma of his father's suicide, comes off as a major talent. He takes a detour into composing, drawing on his experience as a piano prodigy before rock stardom. He's a decent subject to build a movie around. But Kijak never finds the right hooks, choosing instead to wallow in new-age wankery.