Tinseltown to show Neil Young film, chat

By SCOTT BAUER

Associated Press

MADISON, Wis.

The concert film “Rust Never Sleeps” shows Neil Young at his rocking best.

The more-rarely seen “Human Highway” shows Young at perhaps his most eccentric.

Fans will get a chance to view newly restored and edited versions of both back-to-back, and hear from Young himself in a live interview, during a one-night special screening in theaters nationwide Monday. Billed as “An Evening with Neil Young,” it will be the first time either film has received a widespread public screening in decades.

In the Youngstown area, it will be screened at Tinseltown in Boardman at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at the box office and at fathomevents.com.

Young said the time had come to release “Human Highway” after three years of filming starting in 1978, and more than 30 years of tinkering, because he finally felt like he had gotten it right.

Why did it take so long?

“‘Cause I suck, that’s why,” Young said, laughing, in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. “It takes me a long time to do things.”

Young co-directed “Human Highway” under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey and starred as a goofy mechanic at an isolated diner and gas station under the shadow of a nuclear plant. Dennis Hopper co-stars as a deranged (what else?), knife-loving cook, and co-director Dean Stockwell plays the diner’s owner looking for a buyer.

Young said he had a blast making the film with his friends, even though it wasn’t well received when first released. “Most people were turned off; they thought I was destroying my career,” Young said.

He and actors from the film will be interviewed live Monday by filmmaker and rock journalist Cameron Crowe.