Pitchfork

After making the rounds at such lofty festivals as Sundance and SXSW, the Beastie Boys' venture into concert filming will soon drop down to your level, where you can watch it on your couch. Billed as an "authorized bootleg," Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! will be legitimately released (complete with Star Wars-style packaging) to DVD retailers everywhere on July 25, courtesy of THINKFilm.

In case you haven't been following the Beasties' every move lately, the Awesome footage was culled from 50 fan-held cameras scattered among the audience at the Boys' October 9, 2004 show at Madison Square Garden. MCA's anachronistic director persona Nathanial Hornblower then took a year to edit (and thereby bestow authorization on) all the footage from the cameras, making it worthy for film festivals, DVD players, and local cinema screenings.

In the event that Awesome's 88 minutes leave you wanting more of this Beastie Boys live stuff (and who are you to resist?), the DVD will include over two hours of extra goodies, including full-length alternative angles of the concert (in HD), band commentary, no-bullshit a cappella tracks of the Boys' rhymin' and stealin', and a Hornblower short film featuring David Cross. There's no new album hidden in the special features, but at least the Beastie Boys are still working hard...or at least they made their bootleggers work hard.

To promote the DVD, the Boys will appear on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" on July 21. And for those of you in other countries, Japan, New Zealand, and Israel will also get the DVD next Tuesday, the UK gets it a day before, Australia on July 20, and France not until September 25 (sorry, enfants). The film will also be shown on Israeli television on July 28; hopefully the country won't be at war then, so its citizens will be able to enjoy their Beastie Boys in peace.