Practiced are my sins,
Never gonna let me win, aw huh,..
Under everything, just another human being, aw huh,..
Yeh, I don’t wanna hurt, there’s so much in this world
To make me bleed.
— “Just Breathe,” Pearl Jam

Emotion has always seemed to be Pearl Jam’s musical cornerstone, with the mega-sorrowful, gravel-like voice of Eddie Vedder creating a nostalgic longing for a lost love, a lost past, booze, nasty thoughts, endless nights alone — Vedder could probably just walk up to me and say, “good morning,” and I’d start blubbering like a baby.

I’ve felt their music since the group’s debut in 1991 with Ten — songs of depression, suicide, loneliness, and murder, all nifty subjects which a crazed person could really wrap his wispy mind around — up to and including “Just Breathe,” mentioned above.
This John Boehner-like crying originates from “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” which created a mood, forced the mind to react to people, places and things from long ago, a desire to make amends or at the least, do something to stop the sad.
Ain’t nothing touching the words, “Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name,” to evoke a tearful reaction to seeing someone, or something from the deep recesses of personal history, but the details just won’t come — there I go, here at 4 a.m. and I might just start crying.

So it is with goodly anticipation I view the report writer/director Cameron Crowe has put together a feature film on the 20th anniversary of the group, aptly titled, Pearl Jam Twenty, and supposedly includes 1,200 hours of never-seen footage, band interviews and performances.
Crowe seems to be an old Pearl Jam groupie (a friend of the band even before the fame came) and was allowed access to records and stuff.
From indiewire Crowe says:

“When I set out to make this film, my mission was to assemble the best-of-the best from Pearl Jam’s past and present and give audiences a visceral feeling of what it is to love music and to feel it deeply — to be inside the journey of a band that has carved their own path.
There is only one band of their generation for which a film like this could even be made, and I’m honored to be the one given the opportunity to make it.”

Crowe does have a good film record, though, he sometimes misfires (see, no, don’t see ‘Vanilla Sky‘), but one of the better rock-n-roll films is of course his ‘Almost Famous,’ and his earlier, ‘Singles,’ was a terrific look at life amongst young people during the arrival of the so-called ‘grunge age.’

The Pearl Jam film is set for limited September release in theaters with a DVD to follow in October.

“My god its been so long, never dreamed you’d return
but now here you are, and here i am
hearts and thoughts they fade…away…
hearts and thoughts they fade…away…
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away…
hearts and thoughts they fade… “

Shit, I gonna cry — send The Boner to get some tissue, now!