Pavements is a wild ride with one of the greatest underrated rock bands
I don’t make it out to the movie theater as much as I should these days (join the club, I’m sure), but I had to get to Pavements on the big screen. This is the biggest movie yet about Pavement, my third-favorite band behind The Beatles and Guided by Voices.
On the closing night of the film, the somehow-still-cult group garnered enough respect to get a showing in the massive Theater 1 at the AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland. I had purchased tickets ahead of time just to be safe but, somewhat hilariously, we walked into an almost empty cavern with only a handful of other filmgoers in attendance.
No mind; it was nice having the place virtually to ourselves as classic Pavement music videos played before the regular previews.
The documentary, concert, comedy, fiction, non-fiction Pavements was actually released at the Venice International Film Festival back in September, but I was so glad to see it before having to resort to the small screen, where it has finally become available. Whatever you want to call it, the movie is not like great rock biopics like Walk the Line, The Doors, and A Complete Unknown. It’s not like classic concert docs like The Song Remains the Same, The Eras Tour, and Stop Making Sense. It is waaaay it’s own thing, and as many others have noted, that is highly fitting for Pavement.
While it’s not a lot of other things, the one word that I think best describes Pavements is joyous. And as the 97% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes sums up: “Directed with a wry personal touch by Alex Ross Perry, Pavements distinguishes itself as a music doc by not only paying affectionate tribute to its subject but also unpacking the cultural philosophy it personifies.”
One of the ways this movie reaches classic status in my book is that, for one, it will need to be revisited often. Much of the film is told with two to four boxes of video content, which means it’s very difficult to catch it all in one sitting. Further, there are essentially four storylines happening through the entire film, and many viewers will likely be fooled “Blair Witch” style into thinking there really have been a museum show, a stage musical, and a big box-office smash about the band. Meanwhile, underneath all that is the real documentary story of Pavement from beginning to now.
Not that that story is complete. I get the feeling that the incompleteness is exactly how the band thought it appropriate to tell its story, especially leader Stephen Malkmus, who comes off as the mastermind of the many mysteries of Pavement. The other members probably would have been fine with being a really big 1990s success and telling its story all these years later in a more linear, normal way. Sometimes Malkmus comes off as a bit of a jerk, but it’s tough to hold it much against him because I can cut him a lot of slack for being a master with a deep catalog of brilliance easily in the ranks of Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Lou Reed.
My favorite side story in Pavements is the behind-the-scenes tracking of the movie being made about Pavement, with Joe Keery of Stranger Things (and also the band Djo, which has made one of my favorite albums thus far in 2025) playing Malkmus. He hilariously works with a speech therapist to get Malkmus’s accent correct and also visits the Whitney Museum of Modern Art—where Malkmus worked in the 1980s—to seek inspiration.
Also worth noting is the soundtrack, which is a strange but creative collection that Pavement diehards will want to check out. It’s also a pretty ideal place for newbies to sample the band’s greatness, via a fun and large song collection with bits of dialogue from the rockumentary sprinkled throughout.
This is one of my favorite music films in the cannon and I can’t recommend it enough.
5 out of 5 stars