"Awesome; I … Shot That!, the raucous new Beastie Boys concert film, easily could have been called "Adventures in Digital Editing." Nathanial Hörnblowér (the directorial pseudonym of Beastie Adam Yauch, a.k.a. MCA) and supervising editor Neal Usatin culled 90 assaultive minutes from footage shot by 50 fans who were given video cameras and unleashed at an Oct. 9, 2004, concert at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Shot from nearly every imaginable vantage point in the Garden, the film gives a pretty good idea of what it might have been like to be there. The nonstop dance party is broken up by trips to the restroom and concession stand as well as a pre-encore sprint by the Beasties from the stage to the opposite end of the arena and back. There are none of the vanity close-ups that typically mark concert films, and the audience is as much part of the performance as MCA, Ad Rock (Adam Horovitz), Mike D (Mike Diamond) and their assorted sidemen and guest artists (including Doug E. Fresh).
Cutting to the beat of the Beasties' propulsive rap, Hörnblowér creates an experience that is simultaneously low-fi and state-of-the-art. The bouncy, sloppy, randomly zoomed fan-cam footage is caffeinated by the breakneck editing and kitchen-sink effects that give each of the two-dozen songs a distinctive style. Hörnblowér wisely breaks up the visual onslaught of grainy, hand-held shots with some obviously higher-end video footage shot by ringers.”
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