These are good days for washed-up heavy-metal musicians, to judge from the 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil and now Don Argott & Demion Fenton's profile of Bobby Liebling, lead singer and songwriter for the band Pentagram. Liebling has fallen on hard times; it doesn't seem he'll survive the first scene, let alone the entire movie. Shrunken, white-haired, his arms bandaged because of his compulsion to scratch at imaginary "parasites" burrowing under his skin, he looks like Gollum on a bad day. Living in his parents' sub-basement, addicted to substances ranging from crack to Xanax, he still manages to put out the occasional album, and one of these transforms the life of music fan Sean "Pellet" Pelletier, who makes it his life mission to restore Liebling to his brilliance of four decades ago. No easy task, but there's never a dull moment, as this real-life story has more bizarre twists than any fiction.
READ: "The IFFBoston trends to greatness" by Peter Keough for more reviews and trailers for movies playing at the Independent Film Festival Boston.
