Purely Joyful Movie!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I saw Robert Oscar Liebling and Pentagram in Socorro, New Mexico in 1974 -- just before I separated from the military. They'd boarded a bus somewhere in Pennsylvania headed for Secaucus, New Jersey, but a couple of them apparently were ticket-impaired so they all ended up in Socorro. Which worked out for me and the lads as we were based nearby and the sergeant announced their show at morning roll-call.They played Tito's Tortilla Station in Socorro, which sounds funky but was actually a nice little restaurant with decent acoustics. A great show, but NOTHING like Bobby's final performance in the documentary. Dood it moved me to tears, to laughter, even did some snickering. His lyrics sunk into my forehead like a rock outta the hand of King David. And I haven't been free of those haunting, marvelous verses since. Nor of the occasional headache.Robert Oscar Liebling was, clearly, the most overlooked major talent in American music, and this no-punches-pulled documentary makes mockery of the critics and music halls who fail to book Robert in, who thought him washed-up and just another crackshack. Instead, as the final performance showed, Robert had EVOLVED so far ahead of them that they cannot fathom his generous and hallowed offerings. But the critics, and club owners, and corporations shall be put to shame in the future, when the songwriting and performing wonders of Robert Oscar Liebling finally . . . finally are committed to Eternity, so that others in their own time may come upon his unique music, and be reborn in their own hope of triumph over a cruel world and against tremendous odds.Inspiring documentary. We love you Bobby! Middle-finger forever baby! Thank you Robert! You'll never know exactly how much you've given us. I mean, how could you. You still have to count your fingers and toes.But, all good. All good. The music still shines!

I have to say this documentary blew me away. I knew nothing about the group at all and discovered this film by chance on an international flight. From the first minute the movie caught my attention and drew me into the strange and bizarre world of the lead singer of this heavy metal group, Pentagram.The story was so amazing that at times I began to wonder if I was part of elaborate hoax , a strange black comedy, and that the group did not even exist at all.Anyway it is an incredible story whether it is true or not. It traces the absolute passion of the bands singer and his terrible battle with drugs and himself. I tell you this movie will not get recognised by enough people, because the subject matter is almost brutal at times and almost too real, but this is a tour de force of documentary story-telling without doubt.

I am not a fan of Pentagram, I have barely heard of them. However, I barely heard of Anthrax and thought that documentary was superb. That film was about a band soldiering on, ad midst a mostly apathetic public. This is the story of a broken wreck of a man named Bobby Liebling, someone who actually is doing drugs on film. Thankfully, he seems more coherent as the film goes on, to the point where you can understand him. Even if you think of him as a drug addled loser (this is not disrespect, watch the film), you want him to clean up and succeed. This film at first had no meaning to me, but it is the story of a second act. another chance. The best thing about the film are the interviews, as they are not with musical legends, but people who love him. You can see their frustration, but you also see the caring. I wish him well. The film is good, not in the echelon of the Anthrax and Rush documentaries, but worth watching.

This is the sad story of Bobby Liebling, strung out on every narcotic you can think of, a mere shadow of the stage-commanding metal god we all remember him as, reduced to the heart-tugging confines of his parents' basement.This is very much like the film, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, showing us the harsh realities befallen to some bands, despite their moments in the sun, and their God-given resiliency to forge on and keep the music alive.Next to death for seemingly the majority of his life, Bobby somehow manages to conquer his demons, find love, and revive his musical career in a heart-warming culmination of survival, spurred by an amazing assortment of friends and family.The metal lives, and Bobby, you're helping to lead the way.