Follow My Voice - With the Music of Hedwig

• One record producer, the creators of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and top indie rock artists come together to create a tribute album benefiting the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School-the first accredited high school in the country for LGBTQ youth. Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig weaves the compelling, courageous stories of four students at this controversial sc

This is the story of hedwig an ambitious glam-rocker who comes to america determined to find fame fortune and his other half. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 06/03/2003 Run time: 91 minutes Rating: RSometimes grace and hope come in surprising packages. The title character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a would-be glam-rock star from East Germany, undergoes a botched gender-change operation in order to escape from the Soviet bloc, only to watch the Berlin Wall come down on TV after b! eing abandoned in a trailer park in middle America. Hedwig gets involved with Tommy, an adolescent boy who steals her songs and becomes a stadium-filling musical act. Suffering from a broken heart and a lust for revenge, Hedwig follows Tommy's tour, playing with her band (the Angry Inch) at tacky theme restaurants. Into this simple storyline, writer-director-star John Cameron Mitchell packs an astonishing mix of sadness, yearning, humor, and kick-ass songs with a little Platonic philosophy tucked inside for good measure. A visually dazzling gem of a movie. --Bret FetzerHedwig (John Cameron Mitchell) is a Berlin singer whose sex-change operation left her with an "angry inch" and a taste for eyeliner. Closer to the New York Dolls than to New York's post-Sondheimian composers, Mitchell and composer-lyricist Stephen Trask rehabilitate the decadent bombast of early-'70s glam rock in a succession of catchy numbers. Hedwig makes a great transition from stage to recor! d because the book is wafer-thin and lets the band focus on in! dividual songs instead of trying to integrate a narrative: this is indeed the most radio-friendly cast album in a long time. So what if Trask has never met a power chord he didn't like? It may not revolutionize the musical theater, but the grand finale, "Midnight Radio," will have you reaching for a lighter. --Elisabeth VincentelliSometimes grace and hope come in surprising packages. The title character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a would-be glam-rock star from East Germany, undergoes a botched gender-change operation in order to escape from the Soviet bloc, only to watch the Berlin Wall come down on TV after being abandoned in a trailer park in middle America. Hedwig gets involved with Tommy, an adolescent boy who steals her songs and becomes a stadium-filling musical act. Suffering from a broken heart and a lust for revenge, Hedwig follows Tommy's tour, playing with her band (the Angry Inch) at tacky theme restaurants. Into this simple storyline, writer-director-st! ar John Cameron Mitchell packs an astonishing mix of sadness, yearning, humor, and kick-ass songs with a little Platonic philosophy tucked inside for good measure. A visually dazzling gem of a movie. --Bret FetzerSometimes grace and hope come in surprising packages. The title character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a would-be glam-rock star from East Germany, undergoes a botched gender-change operation in order to escape from the Soviet bloc, only to watch the Berlin Wall come down on TV after being abandoned in a trailer park in middle America. Hedwig gets involved with Tommy, an adolescent boy who steals her songs and becomes a stadium-filling musical act. Suffering from a broken heart and a lust for revenge, Hedwig follows Tommy's tour, playing with her band (the Angry Inch) at tacky theme restaurants. Into this simple storyline, writer-director-star John Cameron Mitchell packs an astonishing mix of sadness, yearning, humor, and kick-ass songs with a little! Platonic philosophy tucked inside for good measure. A visuall! y dazzli ng gem of a movie. --Bret FetzerThe musical Rent is said to have revived the rock musical in the 1990s, but it's Hedwig and the Angry Inch that could revive the genre's movie fortunes in the new millennium. Adapted and directed from Stephen Trask's music and lyrics by John Cameron Mitchell, who also reprises the lead role of Hedwig, the flamboyantly unlucky victim of a botched sex-change operation, this is as good as a rock musical gets.

The soundtrack follows the cast album pretty faithfully, except that the whole thing somehow feels turbocharged. Fast numbers like "Angry Inch" (with fab backup vocals by Miriam Shor) and "Exquisite Corpse" rock harder; ballads like "The Long Grift" and "Midnight Radio" are more poignant. The original off-Broadway cast recording was good, but now everything feels sharper, better defined. Even Hedwig's backing band, the Angry Inch, is beefed up by ex­Hüsker Dü Bob Mould on guitar, while Girls Against Boys contribu! te to "Freaks," a track that would be right at home on an old David Bowie album. Even your punk pals will approve when they catch you listening to this musical. --Elisabeth VincentelliSometimes grace and hope come in surprising packages. The title character of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a would-be glam-rock star from East Germany, undergoes a botched gender-change operation in order to escape from the Soviet bloc, only to watch the Berlin Wall come down on TV after being abandoned in a trailer park in middle America. Hedwig gets involved with Tommy, an adolescent boy who steals her songs and becomes a stadium-filling musical act. Suffering from a broken heart and a lust for revenge, Hedwig follows Tommy's tour, playing with her band (the Angry Inch) at tacky theme restaurants. Into this simple storyline, writer-director-star John Cameron Mitchell packs an astonishing mix of sadness, yearning, humor, and kick-ass songs with a little Platonic philosophy t! ucked inside for good measure. A visually dazzling gem of a mo! vie. --Bret FetzerOne record producer, the creators of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and top indie rock artists come together to create a tribute album benefiting the Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School-the first accredited high school in the country for LGBTQ youth.

Follow My Voice: With the Music of Hedwig weaves the compelling, courageous stories of four students at this controversial school with a unique chronicle of the yearlong creation of Wig in a Box, the album whose songs poignantly echo these teens struggles and aspirations. Audiences around the world became instant Hed Heads as Hedwig, like everyone who was ever young, questions TheOrigin of Love, dreams of a Sugar Daddy, feels like a Freak and curses a Wicked Little Town.

Meanwhile, the little known Harvey Milk School for at-risk youth, operating for 20 years in New York City s East Village quickly became the subject of international news when it received accr! editation and financial support from NYC. A furious controversy over public funding ignite passionate self-determination from the kids and a deeper commitment from the artists who them-selves know what it s like to be outside the mainstream.

Through a dramatic and vibrant combination of verité documentation, student video diaries, and rare in-studio scenes of artists recording tracks, Follow My Voice offers a powerful look at this unlikely intersection of youth, gender and rock. Includes Yoko Ono, Rufus Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, Ben Folds, The Breeders, Yo La Tengo, John Cameron Mitchell, They Might Be Giants and more.