The other night, I was dragged through frigid streets to attend a free showing of a rock video-documentary-concert film-thing featuring the alternative rock band, Sigur Ros, titled "Heima." Slide through the streets on a Thursday night to the local art house to attend a movie about an obscure Icelandic rock group? The evening was tinged with magic.

The theater was filled to the brim with thin, serious-looking men, with wispy beards. The young ladies looked like what I would have imagined beatnik chicks to look like 40 years ago. Except that, instead of berets, most people were wearing those knitted caps, with idiotic triangular ear flaps. The hats are made by starving peasants in the Andes, who alternate between making goat hair apparel and playing those little wooden flutes. Virtually all the clothing worn by audience was made of natural fibers. Most everyone was thin, except me and one fat girl, who showed off her voluptuous ta-tas with a wonderfully revealing low cut top, also made of natural fibers. Apparently, you can be a slut and still live a natural lifestyle. Everyone appeared to know, and like, everyone else. People were hugging all over the place. Men hugging women, women hugging women, men hugging men. There was enough touchy-feely going on to make Leo Buscaglia gag. I was tempted to try to hug Miss Organic Dairy Products, but couldn't work up the nerve.

The film documents Sigur Ros returning home to Iceland, where they played a series of free concerts. The band called it giving something back. I call it being so lame you can't even charge admission in your own home town.

For effect, the movie opens with the band playing as shadowy figures, behind a large, gossamer screen. Too bad they didn't leave the screen up for the entire movie. The band consists of four scrawny, dweebish guys-wearing natural fibers, of course--and four chubby girls, who look like they need to lay off the cod liver oil. The girls make up a backing string quartet. Yes, that's right, a string quartet. Ozzy Osbourne is rolling over in his grave, and technically, he's not even dead yet. When I first heard the lead singer, I thought he'd gotten his ice cubes caught in the door of one of those little golf cart-size cars they drive over there. They should have filmed him before his epilepsy meds wore off. This rockin' combo indicates the butt end of the hard rock continuum, which started with Led Zeppelin and the Hammer of the Gods, and ends with four guys in an elementary school auditorium playing antique store musical instruments.

What I learned about Iceland from this film: The men in Iceland look mostly like anemic dorks. The women are mostly beautiful. Go figure. At least marveling at the Icelandic cupcakes in the crowd shots kept me from falling asleep. Once, I figured that all Icelandic women must look like Bjork. Now I realize she's a dwarf, or something. Also, apparently, they only sell monochromatic paint in Iceland, and they seem to have something against trees. The other thing I learned is that Icelandic rock doesn't.

--Oddball