Tom Lynch

They Might Be Giants have grown so tall that they now have their own documentary. John Flansburgh and John Linnell have held our attention for two decades now, consistently producing albums of unmatched brain-pop, dark and funny, sad and cerebral. Director AJ Schnack takes the audience back to the start, when Flans and Linnell were mere Massachusetts grade-schoolers, and plows forward through the career of a band unlike any other. Schnack doesn't cover every facet of TMBG history, but he plays his accordion keys right: he touches on the opening days in Brooklyn, the indie-music videos, the Dial-A-Song. The film doesn't intend to be a chronological study of a rock band, and it certainly isn't-it's simply a glance at the history of two peculiar pop marvels who have successfully avoided becoming sellout peculiar pop marvels, even with the theme song to TV-sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" in their portfolio. Interviews with fans and friends, including Frank Black, Dave Eggers and Ira Glass are both sincere and humorous in the way the interviewees try to hide the fact that they don't have the inside scoop, because there isn't an inside scoop. They're just big fans. We don't get dirty tales from the road. No sex. No drugs. Just coffee and confetti cannons. And, accompanying the vast catalog of TMBG songs released over the last twenty years, that's all we need. 102m.

" Gigantic " opens Friday at the Music Box.

(2003-06-18)

Also by Tom Lynch

Tip of the Week
In "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers," Roach examines the history of the human cadaver, its uses and the biological effects of being deceased. And it's really funny.
(2003-05-21)

Tip of the Week
First-timer Jonathan Melamed directs this tense drama about emotionally troubled teenagers who seem to lack self-knowledge.
(2003-05-21)

Wacky cadavers
"If you really want to know for sure that the human soul resides in the brain, you could cut off a man's head and ask it," begins chapter nine of Mary Roach's "Stiff."
(2003-05-07)

Our town, twisted
In "Wigfield: The Can-Do Town That Just May Not," writers Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello and Stephen Colbert embrace the hilarity of an oddball American small town.
(2003-04-22)

Their TV chariot awaits
(2003-04-15)

At the old ballgame
(2003-04-09)

X-files
(2003-04-02)

Tip of the Week
(2003-04-01)

Doing the deed
(2003-03-26)

Lights, Camera, Hurry
(2003-03-19)

Temporary rock stars
(2003-03-05)

Time is on his side
(2003-02-26)

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