Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Yes, I fell for a marketing ploy. Actually I just searched for "My Chemical Romance" at Amazon.com and the pre-order for Things That Make You Go Mmmm! popped up. It was fairly inexpensive and sounded interesting, so I added it to my cart and kept on shopping. I really should have known better...

What was the point of this DVD anyway?

My Chemical Romance recently came out with a 2-DVD & 1-CD compilation called Life on the Murder Scene (the name is derived from a song lyric on their immensely popular album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge). One of the DVD's contains a 2 hour documentary on the band, and it is fabulous. My husband, who isn't a big MyChem fan, would wander through the room as I watched the documentary and found himself getting engrossed in it as well because it is so well done and engaging. The band members themselves do the majority of the talking, along with video footage recorded throughout their time together as a band. To put it simply, no knock-off documentary done by some outside group could possibly compare with the band-made documentary on Life on the Murder Scene.

The first thing you see when you start playing the Things That Make You Go Mmmm DVD is a message stating that the documentary is unauthorized and that there are no MyChem songs or concert performances included in the documentary. That's right, a documentary on a band that includes no music from the band. It's already off to a poor start.

You might think that, as an unauthorized documentary that was not approved by the band itself, there would be some kind of juicy gossip they could share that the band doesn't want you to know about - something the band wouldn't have wanted to include on their own documentary. On the DVD's box it states "this film reveals much previously unknown about MCR, through their past and into their present..." The problem for Things That Make You Go Mmmmm is that the band was extremely forthcoming on their own DVD (as well as in magazine articles and interviews). They have been very open about their history and their own shortcomings, so there is basically nothing "new" on the Things That Make You Go Mmmm DVD to make it worth having in the first place.

More of my beef with this DVD:

Not only is there no music from My Chemical Romance, there are hardly any photographs of them either. The box touts "Rare photographs featured throughout the film" and "previously unpublished photographs", but there wasn't a single photo that I hadn't seen before (thanks to the power of the internet). The only video of the band is a few seconds of grainy concert footage.

The box also claims that the DVD contains "exclusive interviews with the band." The only time you hear from anyone from the band is a few minutes of what I assume is a radio interview with guitarist Ray Toro. The image that accompanies the audio is a close-up of a cassette tape.

The documentary gets the timeline incorrect. They discuss the replacement of original drummer Matt Pelissier with current drummer Bob Bryar before they discuss the recording of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. Matt wasn't replaced until after Revenge was completed.

The Amazon.com description says that the DVD includes interviews with "ex-members". There is only 1 ex-member (the aforementioned Matt Pelissier) and he is not interviewed on the DVD.

The bulk of the people interviewed for this DVD are people involved with MyChem very early in their time together as a band. I love their first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, just as much as I love the wildly popular Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, so I'm more than happy to learn more about their early days and what went into recording Bullets, however for this to be a well-rounded documentary it should cover their entire career, not just their first album. The bulk of the 1 hour documentary is spent on Bullets, with everything else just barely mentioned.

Since they weren't allowed to use MyChem music they used some other band's music on the DVD. There is cheesy stock footage of hands playing guitars and drums as segues between scenes, and a female British narrator that just adds to the "wrongness" of the DVD as a whole.

Okay, this is very minor, but what kind of DVD title is that? "Things That Make You Go Mmmm" -- for a band that has such wonderful song titles (such as "Thank You for the Venom" and "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Deathwish") could the people who produced this DVD have found a lamer title for their documentary!?!

The stuff I liked:

There were 2 interviews that redeemed this DVD somewhat for me.

On Life on the Murder Scene the band fondly remembers recording their first album in John Naclerio's basement (and stopping recording whenever his mother would vacuum upstairs). The Things That Make You Go Mmmm DVD includes an interview with John Naclerio himself. I liked hearing what he had to say as someone who had worked closely with the band and seemed to remember the experience fondly. Some of the tidbits he shared (such as bassist Mikey Way being the hero of the recording session) were fun to hear, however I think he downplayed lead singer Gerard Way's terrible pain and hospital trips during the recording (laughing it off as "just a toothache", which belittles its seriousness).

I also liked hearing from Mark Debiak and Alex Saavedra, the owners of Eyeball Records (the indie label that produced the band's first album). I particularly enjoyed Saavedra's interview, as he was genuinely a close friend of some of the MyChem members before the band even started and he was there during the recording of their first album. I was surprised to hear him say that he was going to be the MyChem bassist for a while (but ultimately couldn't due to his other obligations), and while I knew that lead vocalist Gerard had recorded most of his vocals for the first album in pain (due to a tooth with an undiagnosed abscess), hearing Saavedra talk about Gerard banging his head against the wall and passing out from the pain really clued me in as to how bad it really was for the poor guy.

Extra Features:

There's a band discography and a trivia quiz (you'll get all the answers to the quiz if you watch the Life on the Murder Scene documentary, but not if you just watch Things That Make You Go Mmmm). There's a feature titled "More MCR" which just takes you to an advertisement for "Maximum My Chemical Romance" which is another cheesy unauthorized documentary that I'm not about to waste my money on.

Final Thoughts:

I love My Chemical Romance. I love their first album. While I enjoyed a few of the interviews on this DVD, I found the whole thing to be a big waste. I would have been just as happy to read the interviews in a book or magazine instead of spending money on a DVD that has no music from the band, no interviews with the band, and practically no photos or video footage of the band. I would only recommend this DVD if you are a rabid My Chemical Romance fan who collects everything about them and you have extra money burning a hole in your pocket. If you don't fall into that category save your cash for a real documentary DVD (namely Life on the Murder Scene). I see this DVD as an attempt by some outside group to make some money off of the success of My Chemical Romance, and I'm disappointed that I contributed to them.



Recommended: No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age