On the pile for a very long time. Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's coverage of the recent Michael Gudinski biopic (creator of the Mushroom group) who gave it a thumbs up. I haven't trawled Howard's catalogue exhaustively but he really got it together on Teenage Snuff Film: his voice, music and lyrics combine well.
This is mostly talking heads. Nick Cave generally sucks the oxygen out of things with some rueful claims that are easy to make thirty years too late, like the bleating of many an Australian politician after they've departed the scene. On the other hand he does make a few good observations, such as Howard being inflexibly oversensitive, taking things a bit too personally. (I sympathise with his take that Howard felt London was made purely to spite him personally.) Wim Wenders claims the sounds of mid-1980s were The Birthday Party's (see Wings of Desire) and that the blokes from Melbourne (actually St Kilda) brought the heroin. Recurring sometime main squeeze Genevieve McGuckin yields the most light, though I have to dispute her claim that Lydia Lunch is sex on legs. Mick Harvey is similarly bemused by Howard's wild talent. Henry Rollins!
There aren't many flat bits and none last long. The highlights are the concert footage and interviews with Howard himself. He's more fun as a kid on a lark than as a self-identifying guru/elder of the 2000s. You didn't have to be there but it probably helps. Nobody noticed that Howard did for The Birthday Party and Nick Cave what John Cale did for The Velvet Underground.
Paul Byrnes. Co-director Richard Lowenstein made Dogs in Space, He Died with a Felafel in His Hand and later tried to bottle lightning again with Mystify: Michael Hutchence. This was a followup to We're Livin' on Dog Food. He has mostly made music videos.