HBO’s four-hour Rolling Stone: Stories from the Edge is more “supercharged anniversary issue” than documentary

Variety

Produced by Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner and directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney, the documentary is exactly what a Wenner-produced documentary would look like. As Jem Aswald notes, there’s a “revealing moment” in the film where Cameron Crowe recalls Wenner scolding him for allowing Led Zeppelin to write what “they” wanted him to write and not getting to the heart of the real story. The same lesson can be applied to this four-hour documentary. “Ultimately,” says Aswald, “it’s four hours of them talking about themselves.” ALSO: The documentary is one hell of a puff piece.