Tom Petty gets the Last Picture Show treatment

Petty still won't back down-and now he has a movie to tell you about it

Tom Petty - if you told me 30 years ago I would be a fan of him, I would've thought you were crazy. Petty was the antithesis of what I was listening to, he had a nasally singing voice, no flashiness and short songs. He seemed to be a stubborn classist amid a range of modern hit tech bands.

But over time I came to appreciate these very qualities in Petty. And it's those qualities that receive a good look at in Peter Bogdonavich's documentary Runnin' Down A Dream (2007). Bogdonavich uses home movies, videos and interviews to tell Petty's story in chronological order and ties each album release to events in his personal life. At four hours long it seemed daunting to view it, but once started Runnin' becomes addictive.

You follow Petty from his hungry early days, his record company battles and personal tragedies. Best of all, the Heartbreakers part in his life are illustrated and given their due. There are many boring rockumentaries. Runnin' Down a Dream isn't one of them.

One nice thing about the movie is that it reminded me of The Last DJ (2002), possibly Petty's worst album (though Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) 1988 is actually that title holder). The song snippets played in the movie sounded great so I popped that disc into my car. And I found that DJ is an album that is less than the sum of it's parts. Each individual song on DJ is a gem, particularly the "Into The Great Wide Open" sequel "Money Became King" and the humorous record company putdown "Joe". But the concept album is too insular, it means to make a statement about society becoming sensationalistic and money grubbing but instead just makes Petty seem like an old crank. It takes away his relatability which leaves DJ hard to take over as a whole.

But that's what's great about Petty. his iracible directness in his songcraft and approach to music. Even when he misfires like on Last DJ, Petty still comes up with winning songs like "Dreamville". Runnin' Down A Dream brings this into sharp focus more effectively than even his box set Playback. Petty has proven himself to be a first tier classic rocker.