From The Sky Down[Blu Ray] [Blu-ray]

My one complaint with U2 ... for a very long time ... was the lack of what they've done here in this film. Something close and personal. Something intimate and revealing - outside of a song. Something that explains, from them, what the hell we've all been engaged in, headlong, for so damn long.There are a group of people on this planet that whenever they hear the word U2, they cringe. It's hard to get around or dismiss these people and for someone like me who is a serious fan, it's hard to understand why and difficult to grasp how all that happened. If you watch this documentary ... and pay close attention ... all becomes clear.The film opens with a narration from Bono, interspersed with snippets from Edge, Larry and Adam as well as moments from everyone else close to the center of this universe. Brian Eno, Paul McGuinness, Anton Corbijn. It picks up - exactly - where the last real documentary footage they remastered and released left off. Most that read this likely bought the remastered releases which included The Unforgettable Fire and had their experience of making that album at Slane Castle in the eighties.The first revelation: They struggled with putting on big shows, being consistent and worrying that they didn't have enough material to keep it going.Wow. I have a lot of the concert recordings of them through the eighties and I never once thought that at all. Your fears are truly your own, no matter who you are. That's probably revelation number two, but that was mine, for me, maybe not a universal one.The conversation steers towards Rattle & Hum and it's sad to hear all the reflections on it. Honestly. These four lads from Dublin invested everything they had financially to make a small film about them being on the road and their journey through America. The concerts after the Joshua Tree release, for them, "were like a roller coaster," Edge says. This is the point where the world met up with them and instead of listening to the music and just hearing the album, which still stands up and is timeless, people became distracted by the commentary in the press, which somehow and unfortunately became louder. They were scoriated in the press for Rattle & Hum and after putting so much into it, it killed them or rather, almost killed them.The world, Roger Ebert, Rolling Stone, everyone - saw the effort and them as Megalomaniacs and it would be something that was heavy, painful and difficult to shake. What's more painful is finding this out after watching that musical road movie so many times, so many nights, so many Sunday afternoons and loving it every time - even if it just played quietly in the background. I had heard that, but I never shared the opinion. I just saw it as a modern day version of Kerouac's On The Road.That public souring was a shadow that they couldn't shake due to the nature of how the commentary was shaped on 24 hour Live MTV for the next few years which caused them a lot of distress. MTV was still favouring their tiring 'Hair Bands' (Bon Jovi, Ratt, Poison) on the Weekends with Headbanger's Ball and then groveled at the feet of the North-Western Grunge Sound Monday through Friday (Nirvana, Pearl Jam). U2 didn't fit that -- at all -- and so they systematically slammed them endlessly, bolstering that particular public opinion - which honestly was never really true to begin with.There is an odd parallel here with what happened at this point with U2 and what happened with Weezer during their Pinkerton release [close to same time frame]. They both went over the edge with something too personal, something too raw, something too good for mass consumption and the critics just walked all over it and threw it back in their faces as if none of it mattered. For the record, it mattered a lot and it mattered to a lot of people over time, but mostly it very much mattered to them.For the haters, nothing happened here in this period that had changed. Let's be honest. One might say that during the first 5 albums U2 slowly embraced more and more of the American spirit and made it theirs. They just kept evolving. When you ask some people they always say the same thing and it's a variation of this:"I like old U2 before they sold out and changed. When they were a Rock band they kicked ass, something happened after Joshua Tree. Their early albums were all that mattered."These sentences are like the jigsaw pieces that fall out of people's mouths and unfortunately from a set of people old enough who still control radio station playlists which is why we're always subjected to the same 5 U2 songs on FM every time they get play. It's an ongoing shame.I was in New York in April of 2011 and I was stunned at the amount of U2 I heard on the radio and the variety of the songs that played over the airwaves. I heard `Love is Blindness' on some station driving out to Jersey and `Please' the next day. For me, it was incredible. I mentioned this dilemma to my friend but he just ignored me because, one, he wasn't aware of the West-Coast bias, and two, I often go off on tangents about history, U2, or the history of U2 -- in no discernible order.This film is magic from the beginning to the end and will give you a viewpoint of U2 no matter what you feel about these guys. There's absolutely no politics in this, no soapboxing, nothing of that magnitude. It's an internal struggle and "each man for himself" as Bono says, which is underlined as a betrayal to the concept of a band. They were on the verge of breaking up and getting over the loud ringing critical tone of hate that came at them from the failure of Rattle & Hum continuously. All of that began the birth of The Fly, MacPhisto, the pushing back to save themselves.MacPhisto really was Bono's psychological reaction to what he likely perceived as a massive failure and ultimate rejection. It's hard not to watch that footage in Sydney of 'Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car' and NOT see that something was up.Stopping here. It's odd to write the words: "The failure of Rattle & Hum," Jesus that's absurd. "The failure of Pinkerton." An album that Rolling Stone later wrote was one of the great top ten concept albums ever. I'm curious now what they say about Rattle & Hum. The irony and the next revelation, which isn't the first time one might here it, is:"You can't listen to the critics."But possibly, there's some serious untruth in that. In dealing with the pain of what had happened, they came up with `One' which then changed everything. The album came from that moment and everything after followed.Haters love to mention the album Pop, but that's only because they haven't listened to it from beginning to end. They should called the damn thing 'Hymnal' because that's honestly what that thing is. It's like Bach's collections of Chorales. Everything points back to God in one manner or another and that's not a crime or a bad thing. Some people could use a little more faith, even if it's just in themselves.In modern mass-consumed music, everyone gets eaten alive, people implode, check out, blow it, say no more. Rarely do people survive it in this manner shown here. Often bands ditch members and continue, note Foreigner's problems and Lou Gramm. Note Creedence Clearwater Revival who are still fighting with lawyers to this day. Something has to be said about the intense desire to show up to work and keep going, keep making music and pushing forward. Nothing is ever perfect, but nothing would've been a bitterer pill to swallow for sure. If you can't find something good, you're probably just not looking."You have to reject one expression of the band, first, before you get to the next expression - and in between, you have nothing. You have to risk it all." -- Bono...

First of all, my interest in U2 is cursory. Back in the 80s/90s, I nearly wore out my cassette tapes of Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, but outside of those two albums, it's been hit or miss for me. In fact, the "Pop" album somewhat sealed my distrust for any new U2 releases, and so I've missed out on the past 15 years. But thanks to this video, I'm re-exploring my roots, so to speak. (Incidentally, after viewing this, I've picked up all the CDs/DVDs from the last 15 years, and happy to say that I hear a return to true form).I was expecting something completely different. I'm familiar with the "Classic Albums" series, which basically shows a band or some of its members sitting in the control room with a mixing board and noodling around with the mix and discussing how it all came together. There's a video in this series for Joshua Tree, and it is interesting, despite not covering all the tracks on the album. I was expecting something similar but for Achtung Baby. I was totally wrong.What Guggenheim did here, to me, was nothing short of genius. Here's how the documentary works: the context for the film is NOT the Achtung Baby album, as most people think. Rather, it is the 360 tour from 2011, which essentially was U2 touring their classic hits, primarily centered around 1991's Achtung Baby. The documentary explores WHY these songs are significant to THE BAND, and HOW they prepared for the tour. The focal point of the documentary is the rehearsal sessions before the tour (and we get a glimpse of the tour during the end credits). All other information, footage, etc. should be viewed within this context or the documentary may not make a whole lot of sense. One other thing to note: U2 wasn't just going to tour classic songs for the 360 tour, they were going to re-think many of these songs, rearrange them, and present them anew. To do this effectively, many of the original demo tapes for the Achtung Baby sessions were brought to rehearsal so that the band could remember what the backdrop had been for each song in order to strip out the production lining and get at the core emotion of each song, and then re-package the song for the tour. The extras on the Bluray edition contain some of these "refreshed takes" which are vastly different from the studio album versions, including: The Fly (sung by Bono alone with his acoustic guitar, complete with kicking over chairs in the process), Love is Blindness (sung by The Edge with his acoustic guitar, all alone with no accompaniment), etc. etc.Guggenheim isn't too presumptuous either. If you're new to U2, keeping the things in mind I said above is all you need. You will see a short history of their rise to the top of the charts, how they did it, and how it affected them. You will NOT see a whole lot of what they went through AFTER 1991's Achtung Baby. The archive footage is well-preserved. The cadence and pacing of the film is near perfect, and I can't recall a portion that was boring or unwarranted.Guggenheim's illustration of the artistic rift between band members was well-done. It's quite clear that Larry Mullen was not entirely on board with the concept of introducing German dance club beats and drum machines into the album. He is, after all, a very vivid drummer with little regard for proper form (think Keith Moon but with a bit more restraint). Drum machines aren't as "loose" or as improvisational as a live drummer, at least in the early 1990s. One magical and unforgettable moment of the documentary was the flash of joy across Mullen's face when banging out the beat to "Zoo Station," as he finally started to connect with the album's direction and concept. Another notable portion of the film was the archive footage showing how the band extracted the second bridge section from the demo version of "Mysterious Ways" to come up with the basic chord progression for "One." (The lyrics, which are some of U2's most passionate/powerful, came AFTER the music, surprisingly). All along, Guggenheim's use of simple animation, dubbed over with the band's narrative move the documentary along fluidly. There are many moments like these that were captured on film during the recording sessions and which are displayed with real impact, and never over the top.Don't hesitate to watch this film. This is the standard for how a "rockumentary" ought to be made.

This is not a concert DVD. I'm sure there are quite a few people who have pointed that out to avoid confusion. There isn't a plethora of live footage if I remember but there are quite a few moments of the band in studio with Bono being...err...himself telling the Edge how to play guitar. So there definitely are some funny moments. This documentary basically chronicles how the band was splitting apart around this time and how Achtung Baby brought them back together. There are a couple of extras, Bono doing a solo performance of "So Cruel" and "The Fly" and Edge doing a solo performance of "Love Is Blindness". The latter part of the docu is focused on how the song "One" came about and how that song saved the band from a split. There were also moments where Edge and Bono listened to old demos and gave their opinions on them. This is a documentary mostly suited to big U2 fans as you can't always appreciate their comedy if you don't know them well. Overall it is very informative and has little gem clips sprinkled throughout that make me recommend this greatly.

I have all previous U2 DVDs & was eager to acquire this being it is about their 1991 masterpiece Achtung baby ( yes not the Joshua tree). Does include footage from Rattle & Hum & starts & finishes with Glastonbury appearance. More footage from 2011 when DVD released than at the time of making the album in Berlin. This was shown on TV a few years ago & DVD includes 3 tracks as extras. Worth a purchase and acquired at a reasonable price.

great documentary about one of the best albums of all time!! the only dissapointment is that it spends alot of time on u2s past and not enough about the album itself!! but it's good to see u2 from recently giving some of the tracks a makeover and very interesting to hear their views on their work!! not really enough about the making of the album though!! not excellent but in my opinion very good!! worth the money!!

As a big U2 fan, I enjoyed this film immensely. It could have done with a bit more footage from the actual Achtung Baby recording sessions rather than listening to the band members purely comment on them. Having said that, tons of interesting stories, especially the conception of "One" and the intensity of the recording sessions in general. Not sure this would appeal to anyone except the hardened U2 fan.

Quality of this 2nd hand copy is very good. No complaints.

Very well thought out piece of film making and interesting insight into one of the worlds most enduring bands. A real pleasure to watch, and loved the bit about Bono's approach to song writing!Well worth getting if your a fan, or know someone who is! (They'll be your biggest fan if you do! :-) )Only gripe is coverage of Glastonbury performance; there wasn't enough.