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MAINE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

Ode to 'the great under-appreciated rock band of all time'

The Kinks and middle age

By Scott Monroe smonroe@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

WATERVILLE -- "Standing in the middle of nowhere, wondering how to begin. Lost between tomorrow and yesterday, between now and then.

And now we're back where we started; here we go round again. Day after day I get up and I say:

I better do it again."

Those are the opening lyrics to the song "Do It Again," by the British rock band the Kinks.

And that's the title of a new documentary film that will be shown tonight at 9 p.m. and Monday at 9:30 p.m. at the Waterville Opera House, as part of the 2010 Maine International Film Festival.

In "Do It Again," which is directed by Robert Patton-Spruill, Boston Globe staff writer Geoff Edgers embarks on a quest to find the still-surviving band members and reunite them. The Kinks -- formed in 1963 -- are perhaps best known for their hit songs "You Really Got Me," "Lola" and "Come Dancing." The band's stars, brothers Ray and Dave Davies, stopped performing together in 1996.

The film, which Edgers also produced, is as much about the Kinks as it is the journey. Edgers is driven by his lifelong love of their music and the panic of turning age 40.

"I wanted to make a movie about the Kinks and my director, Robert, is not a huge fan and he wanted to make a movie about me," Edgers said in an interview. "I think what we ended up doing was both."

He picked the song "Do It Again" because, in addition to its "killer" mid-section guitar riff, the song also "says it all." Edgers said he also identified the lyrics with his middle-age apprehension and the uncertainty of the movie's mission.

"It's talking about place, the point where you're looking back and forward and you don't know what's going to happen," Edgers said. "'Do It Again' is going back and reclaiming something, in a way, to do that thing everybody wants you to do."

Edgers plans to attend tonight's showing and will answer questions from the audience.

"Being at the Waterville Opera House is exciting," he said. "I wouldn't miss it for the world."

The 85-minute-long film includes interviews Edgers conducted with other musicians and songwriters about the Kinks, including Sting, Zooey Deschanel, REM's Peter Buck, Paul Weller, Robyn Hitchcock and Clive Davis.

Part of Edgers' motivation for making the movie was that, while he had a good job and great family, "I also started to realize that maybe I hadn't done anything important, and that's what set me on my journey."

In a story he wrote for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Edgers said he learned one simple rule during the movie-making process: "Forget you have a life." Most days for the two years it took to produce the documentary involved anxiety, exasperation and "if I was lucky, a fleeting moment of surreal satisfaction," he wrote.

Edgers said he worked on the movie around his job as a Globe reporter, conducting interviews on weekends and at night to try and raise money and seek permissions.

But the stress was worth it, Edgers said, because he has loved the Kinks since the age of 13.

"I think the Kinks are the great under-appreciated rock band of our time," he said. "The Beatles and the Stones occupy a special place, but when you listen to the Kinks records from the '60s and up, they're better than The Who."

Their songs were about envy for classmates, social issues, mischief -- at a time when everybody was just writing about girls, he said.

So what can moviegoers expect from "Do It Again"? Not surprisingly, Edgers won't disclose whether the Kinks reunite, but he does say that people "can expect to go on the strangest musical adventure they've ever been on."

You'll see Sting, for example, "acting like a teenager when he decides to play -- for reasons I still can't understand -- an impromptu song with me."

What did Edgers learn from the experience?

"You really can make a good movie just by pushing and continuing to push and not giving up."

Scott Monroe -- 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com