Wilco Movies

When Nora Guthrie, daughter of folk legend Woody Guthrie, unearthed a 50-year-old, unproduced collection of her father's lyrics, she called upon British songwriter Billy Bragg to put them to music. Bragg teamed with Chicago-based, alt-country band Wilco, and in 1998 Mermaid Avenue was released to critical adulation and a Grammy nomination. Two years later, Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2 was released to equal fervor and another Grammy nomination. Narrated by Nora Guthrie, this feature-length documentary chronicles Bragg's search "...for the spirit of Woody Guthrie," as he travels to Okemah, OK, where Guthrie was born, and to New York City where he gained notoriety. From there, the film follows Bragg to Chicago to meet up with Wilco, and finally to Dublin where the albums were recorded and where the creative process sometimes caused emotions to run high between Bragg and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett. ~ Matthew Tobey, Rovi

Circuit is a series of DVDs that brings the viewer closer to the music and the musicians. This edition of Circuit features interviews, live performances, and candid footage of a broad spectrum of artists including Rufus Wainwright, Sebadoh, The Roots, Wilco, and a preview of the soundtrack for the comedy SLC Punk. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

When photographer and commercial director Sam Jones began plans to make I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, he envisioned a long-form rock video about the making of a Wilco album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. But right from the start, it seemed that Jones was destined to make a documentary about an extremely tumultuous period in the band's existence. The day before Jones started shooting, Jeff Tweedy, the band's singer-songwriter, called to say that they had fired Ken Coomer, and hired a new drummer, Glenn Kotche. Jones started shooting his film, in black-and-white, as the band recorded their inventive new album. He captured the tensions caused by creative differences between Tweedy and guitarist-songwriter-engineer Jay Bennett. Tweedy takes a break from making the album to go on a short solo tour. The band eventually completes the album, and after it's mixed by Jim O'Rourke, Tweedy is happy with it, and feels that the band has taken their music in a new direction. They send it to their label, Reprise, a division of Time Warner, and after two weeks of silence, the label, concerned about the album's commercial prospects, calls band manager Tony Margherita and asks for the band to make changes. Tweedy refuses, and Reprise decides to let the band take Yankee Hotel Foxtrot elsewhere. The band goes on tour, and stream the album on their website. Eventually the conflict between Tweedy and Bennett comes to a head. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (named of a song on the album) documents the unexpected trials of the band, and their efforts to overcome them. The film premiered at the 2002 Los Angeles Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Grogan (Kevin Heffernan) and Matt (Paul Soter) get caught red-handed stealing food from the college cafeteria, but Felix (Steve Lemme) calmly climbs out a back window and gets away. Later, at a party with his friend, Zach (Jay Chandrasekar), Felix catches sight of Suzanne (Kayren Butler) and is immediately smitten. But not only does Suzanne have Traci (Jamison Selby), her jock boyfriend from home, hanging around, it also turns out that she's defending Felix's moronic friends in the school's case against them. As if this wasn't enough trouble, she's also trying to get them to turn in their unknown accomplice. Zach has his own romantic problems. He's gotten the phone number of a beautiful woman, but she's left out one of the digits, and he's too shy to approach her again, necessitating several hours of dialing wrong numbers. Meanwhile, Suzanne's friend, Emily (Alison Clapp), is being pursued by the kooky campus mailroom worker, Freaky Reaky (Erik Stolhanske). Puddle Cruiser was the first feature from the Colgate University-spawned comedy troupe, Broken Lizard, who produced the film independently. The film was well received at several festivals, including the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, but failed to find a distributor. The troupe took the film on an innovative national college tour, selling tickets and building word-of-mouth. Broken Lizard's follow-up feature, Super Troopers, received a wide theatrical release in 2001. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

This concert DVD from alternative rock band Wilco captures moments form several 2008 live performances by the group in Washington D.C., Mobile, New Orleans, Tulsa and Nashville. Some of the songs featured in the program include Heavy Metal Drummer, Impossible Germany, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and more. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi