Absolutely the worst movie.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

They say that past is prologue. As I write this, David Bowie died two days ago, succumbing to a cancer diagnosed eighteen months earlier. In one of those instances of cosmic serendipity that quite often manages to surprise me, this film aired last week on one of the cable channels and I decided to record it. It captures David Bowie's final concert in the persona of Ziggy Stardust, one of many that the talented singer brought to the fore over the course of his long and varied career. It was recorded on July 3rd, 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, an array of seventeen tunes both familiar and unfamiliar (at least to me). From today's vantage point, his eerie 'My Death Waits' would seem to be oddly prophetic, but after all, this was over forty years ago so I don't want to assign any undo meaning to it. Accompanied by Mick Ronson on guitar, the band rocks it splendidly, as mostly teenage girls in the crowd swoon over Bowie's characterization. In many respects, he WAS the Wild Eyed Boy of Freecloud, and I'll miss him. Rest in Peace, David Bowie.

This is the film of the final concert that Bowie would ever play with his (then)back up band, The Spiders From Mars (featuring Mick Ronson on guitar). It was filmed/directed by D.A. Pennebaker (Don't Look Back, Monterey Pop). Despite those credentials, this is unfortunately a very poorly shot & edited document of a very good concert. The camera(s) seem to shake,rattle & roll every time they're fixed on a band member (Pennebaker seems to have a real problem keeping the camera in focus, making this film about as much of a challenge as watching the first reel of Warhol's 'Poor Little Rich Girl'--where the entire first reel is totally out of focus). Bowie & company manage to be in finer than fine form,snorting fire during this Odeon Hammersmith performance in 1973. This film was originally filmed for what was intended to be the pre cursor of the DVD, the laser disc, but after viewing the poor quality of the film, the producers of the laser disc quickly changed their minds. 'Ziggy' then managed to sit in the can for ten years, until it managed to somehow get spotty distribution (via the art house circuit)in 1983. If you can get past the clumsy, in and out of focus camera work & poor editing,this film just might give you a clue into what Bowie was into back then. Honestly,I would have to recommend picking up the sound track CD instead.

...just way too much of it on film.I just finished watching a tape of ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS, but it wasn't "easy". This is obviously not Pennebaker's best work, even if it was only supposed to be a documentary of Bowie's "last" show. Well, maybe his last show as Ziggy, anyway.There appears to be several cameras set-up the concert, but we only get massive doses of Dave & Mick Ronson. The other two guys in band (Trevor & Mick Woodmansy) are shown ever so briefly, and where the hell is the sax player featured on "Changes"? Even the set list skimmed a few key cuts from the Ziggy album, and Ronson's guitar "noise" jam used to fill time while Dave changed duds certainly wasn't a decent substitute.So don't run out of your way to catch this, but it's not a total waste.

I still love David Bowie, and still very much would have loved to see one of his Ziggy Stardust shows... but this video is a cruel teaser. I couldn't understand why a videotape book I saw called it "practically unwatchable, and unlistenable"--now I know why. Bowie does his best to put on a good performance, but that's not the problem here--the problem is that this may very well be the WORST filming of a concert ever made. The cameras, obviously handheld, are constantly refocusing themselves and forgetting their places, they are shaky, the quality is no better than your typical home movie, they all too often focus on the audience for far too long when we wish we could see the changes going on on stage in the show instead, the sound quality is hideous, and worst of all, we only get an IDEA of what the concert was like (I still have no idea what even the full STAGE looks!). If it weren't for the fact that this is a legitimate release, I would swear that it was an illegally-filmed movie made by a group of fans who snuck cameras into the concert. It's THAT bad. It's really terrible when the cameras are so set on awful closeups and are so shaky and unsteady that you can't even understand most of what's supposed to be going on on stage. After watching it, I felt like I had only been given a hint of what one of those Ziggy-era shows was like... and I still have no more of a full idea of what the experience was like than I did before sitting down to watch this. It's terribly, terribly sad that this is apparently the only footage shot of one of those shows--because we Bowie fans who weren't there would STILL love to see the show in its entirety.