Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony: S&M (1999)

Best movie of this year hands down!

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Really Surprised!

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

I don't know who or what ever gave Metallica the idea to "rework" their songs with an orchestra. Needless to say the (arguably) greatest thrash band of all time lost whatever credibility they had left with this album. Mediocre songs like "Of wolf and man" get a new sound with the classical addition hardly doing the song any justice. I might be totally illiterate musically, but hardly anything added to the songs by the orchestra is even remotely interesting. In fact it seems the band and the orchestra are playing different songs altogether all the time. As an old fan of Metallica this hurts. I can't help to think the wrong songs got picked for this venture too. For instance "Fade to Black" or "Creeping Death" would sound a million times better than "Sad but true" with a classical arrangement. I can accept that Metallica isn't a thrash band anymore. I'm not stupid though. An album like this won't renew my interest in Metallica. While the whole setup and idea is laudable, it is altogether too poorly executed to be considered "great". I would go as far as to state it takes a lot of goodwill to like this effort. I've only read glowing reviews on this site. Maybe I'm the musical fool, but this stuff doesn't sound right. None of the additions do Metallica justice (no pun intended). I'm sorry, but as a thrash fan I can only frown on this effort as it reminds me of what Metallica was and could have been.

Being a big Metallica fan I was amazed that Metallica was going to have a concert with an Orchestra and that one of My favorite movie composers Michael Kamen was going to be the Orchestrator and Conductor I couldn't believe it! This was an awesome experience seeing such an extraordinary event! The camera work is remarkable. It catches so many great moments perfectly in My opinion! The songs that were chosen are great and I thought it was really cool to have two new songs just for this concert! The band really performs greatly and James Hetfield's singing is incredible and I just love his voice! Michael Kamen is just so great here! The sound is also great! Overall in My opinion this is one of the most spectacular events of all time! If you love Metallica and want to see them in one of the greatest concerts ever and want to see Michael Kamen do his stuff then I strongly recommend that stop by at Amazon.com and buy the video and/or the DVD and the audio CD today! Movie Nuttball's NOTE: The DVD version has an Easter Egg on it. You can have the Orchestra performing by themselves Its a unique feature and it makes it a totally different experience!

Many people will most probably ask a question like "why would anyone want to comment something that has been issued five years ago and has not been a topic of discussion for a long time?" The previous comment that I have found gave me a motive. To be honest, I find this show to be one of the best ones that I've seen in years. Metallica is a great rock band and no comparisons to the older bands like Pink Floyd (which is also one of my favorites) will be needed. They have been developing their own style through the years and made the heavy-metal music popular. I don't want to be understood like a die-hard fan, because I'm not, but making a concert with a symphony orchestra gave their music a new dimension, and made it even more honest in it's dark ways. This is a masterpiece and it is not a purely commercial project, as the undirected people will rate it. Listen or watch the concert without any prejudices and you will find nothing wrong about it, you will most probably enjoy it. Since I'm already here and snce I posted a comment about "S&M", I also must point out that their new album "St. Anger" is a pure disappointment. So, in my opinion, this is also to be considered (at least by me) as something like the very last good thing they've done until this point.

Metallica have done some wild things before this.. they've put a 'Grammy Award LOSERS' sticker on their AJFO album, they've released one of the heavyest albums of all time (The Black album) and they've played a concert near the Artic Circle, but this just beats all. This hellauacious concert with the San Francisco Symphony has to be one of the greatest listening experiences of a lifetime. Alone Metallica's songs are great, but with the backing of a 100 piece orchestra, it blows most of 'Tallica's songs away. Video: 9 The video quality of this DVD is spectacular, with crystal clear quality.Audio: 10 Blown away in 5.1 digital sound, the DVD sounds better than the CD. Not only is the audio quality outstanding, the audio extras make this DVD worth the buy. Not only can you chose 2.0 stero quality sound, you can listen to the band only, or even the symphony only.Extras: 10 A bit to play with, with the audio extras above, you get a 41 min documentry on the making of S&M, a 'Mastro Cut' version of 'No Leaf Clover' and the 'No Leaf Clover' Video. Plus, you get 4 songs with different camera angles of the band members. (You can watch James, Lars, Jason, or Kirk seperately)Overall: 10 A true buy, a must own for any Metallica Fan, or any real fan of music.