Gigantic caters to fans, certainly: if you're already converted, you'll love every minute of it. And newcomers who have been turned onto the Giants through the likes of Ira Glass, Conan O'Brien, or "Malcolm in the Middle" will likely find the whole thing very amusing. The audience it REALLY does not serve is the one of which I am a member: reformed one-time diehards who turned away from the cult-like sway of TMBG fandom once we realized that yes, TMBG were capable of making bad records, and increasingly seem to make a habit of it. Part of TMBG's allure when you first get into them is discovering this crazy little musical universe that seems to belong only to you. However, as with Monty Python or "Mystery Science Theater 3000," it only takes meeting a few other fans before you realize the inherent self-congratulation in appreciating TMBG. What seemed to be an innocent enough personal pleasure is revealed to be at least partially fuelled by an elitist "gifted class" mentality. You like TMBG because you "get" them, and that makes you "smarter" than those who don't. It stops being about the quality of the music and more about you. But ultimately I'd rather hang with Wall Street investment bankers who talk about nothing but hedge funds than the cape-clad dorkwads who quote favorite lines from the TMBG canon. If that makes me racist, so be it. To its credit, Gigantic accurately and lovingly reflects the Giants' history, their skewed musical approach, and the way their music affects their fans. What it also does, though, is pull back the curtain a bit too far to reveal John & John not as the true nerds we thought they were, but as rather smug New York hipster wannabes whose music reflects cynicism more than any kind of real emotion. I do appreciate the revelation that TMBG's fans (myself included) never quite "got" them at all; we may have gotten the wordplay in their lyrics, or the funny references, or the overall sensibility of their music, but we were incorrect in assuming they were just like me and you. They are nerds, certainly, but they seem either unaware of this, or in denial about it. Instead, they seem to consider themselves performance artists in the classic New York art-scene sense, more along the lines of Basquiat or Bongwater than Barnes & Barnes. In any event, TMBG are, above all, a couple of very lucky bastards to have been doing the thing they do at the time they started doing it. Footage from the band's early years and initial steps into the mainstream is interesting – a clip of John & John playing "Birdhouse" with Doc Severinson & the Tonight Show band, for example, is pretty damn thrilling. More recent footage is significantly less thrilling, as the Johns seem to be painfully self-aware of being filmed, and their coy sel-awareness gets really hard to take after a short while. Worse, though, are the talking heads, who comprise what may be the most physically repellent cast ever assembled for a documentary. When Dave Eggers is about as attractive a person as you can get, that's a real sad situation. I almost wish Playboy had tried to run a "Girls of Gigantic!" photo spread to tie in with the film, featuring Sarah Vowell and Syd Straw – just so Playboy could have its lowest-selling issue of all time. People would pay extra to NOT buy a copy. Then there's the matter of having interludes wherein people like Andy Richter and Michael McKean recite TMBG lyrics straight into the camera … just a bad idea all around. It doesn't take long at all before Gigantic has simply turned into a MENSA-fied circle-jerk. To take things down even further, the film is, from a technical perspective, just ineptly made, with interview segments recorded a lot more quietly than the musical segments – so if you're watching on DVD, you constantly have to adjust the volume to keep things in balance. Why indie documentary makers all seem to make the mistakes with sound is a serious mystery … don't they know it sounds like shit when an interview plays back at about a quarter the volume of the previous scene, or when a new scene suddenly blares from the speakers? Get some good mics, assholes! Work harder on your goddamned sound mix! For years I've defended Giants against folks who have zero patience for the music, and I never understood how people couldn't LOVE TMBG. After watching Gigantic, I now fully see where the detractors are coming from: people who love TMBG are really just in love with themselves, and what's to love about that?
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