Omar and Cedric: If This Ever Gets Weird
The untold 40-year story of the crowning moments, creative turmoils and deep friendship of the pair behind At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta.
Before Omar Rodríguez-López ever picked up a guitar, he had a video camera. As a teenager in El Paso, he dreamed of becoming a director after he was done fooling around in hardcore bands. But after meeting Cedric Bixler-Zavala, the vocalist was always in Omar’s viewfinder. It was Cedric who lured Omar back to Texas to form a soon-to-be-iconic act: At the Drive-In. Together, they’ve lived and created, fought and filmed through drug addictions, the deaths of friends, the implosion of At the Drive-In and the birth of prog-rockers The Mars Volta, and even Cedric’s fraught stint in the Church of Scientology.
British director Nicolas Jack Davies has profiled Gorillaz, Mumford & Sons and legendary UK label Trojan Records. Now, he has crafted another compelling music documentary, one built almost entirely around four decades’ worth of Omar’s self-shot footage. The fact that Omar and Cedric are rock stars together twice over feels almost incidental; this intimate and immersive film, which features lively, almost duelling voiceovers from both men, is for anyone who cherishes someone else. The pair promised each other that if music ever came between them, they’d stop – and that’s why they still play.
“Unlike any music documentary I’ve seen … What it might feel like to be on your deathbed trying to remember your whole life.” – RogerEbert.com
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