As we move like a bullet, it seems the start of spring training, I have to take a quick shot at going the rock'n'roll culture route, looking at a couple of documentaries that came out toward the end of 2007.

Both these films--Running Down a Dream and Amazing Journey--review the terrific careers of two major bands, those being Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and The Who, respectively.

And, though you might be a serious fan of either, or both (like me), and you might have your Petty/Townshend trivia down to a fine art, watching these masterminds and their supporting casts embrace a career and path, and mature as performers and artists, is just beyond words.

The Petty disc is a two-parter, four hours long, directed by Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Mask, and Paper Moon) which concludes with the bands' 30-year anniversary show in Gainesville, Florida where the group began.

As one would expect, the story starts with Petty et al in their inception years, as high schoolers, as a local hot young band, through their apprenticeship as a bar band, and beyond.

But, what is wonderful is Petty and company always seemed to have someone videoing their performances, so, the early inception of the band, then known as Mudcrutch, has live performances that were filmed in Super8 (remember that format?) and then translated digitally to the big screen format. So, we actually see the evolution of the band as peformers.

Additionally, the album works through the Heartbreakers career, album by ablum, with Petty narrating what went into the disc, including the personnel, the politics, the pressure, and the drama.

To complement, others involved with each record are also interviewed so by the time we get to 2007 a complete picture of the band and its history has been presented.

Plus, there is a lot of great live footage.

Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who was directed by Murray Lerner (The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival) a director who also filmed much of the Isle of Wight festival footage.

Amazing Journey goes through the career of this seminal band, starting back with their roots playing Motown and R&B at the Marquee club before there really were any Mods or Rockers about.

Again, like the Petty film, Amazing Journey is peppered with early film clips, but, it also looks not so much album by album, at the band's evolution, as it does how their place in the British scene at the time formed both the band, and, well, the scene as well.

It is a tumultuous and energetic look into four of the best rock players and their inevitable climb as a powerhose band, driven by one of the finest tunesmiths in pop/rock history in the fabulous Pete Townshend.

There is plenty of time spent on the life and thoughts and excesses of all including the late bass player John Entwhistle (by Townshend and Roger Daltrey, as well as Sharon Entwhistle), and Keith Moon (again by Townshend and Daltrey, and this time Moon's mum).

And, well, the live footage of the band over their first ten years is nothing short of astonishing, and, if you were lucky enough to have seen the original lineup, you know exactly what I mean.

Amazing Journey also comprises two discs and nearly four hours, and, at the end of the disc, we see analysis of the bands' playing style disected by professional musicians, who do a compare and contrast making the singular skills of each player really shine in contrast to the mainstream approach taken by most musicians.

Spring Training games will be starting in a little over a week, so, if you have some down time between now and then, treat yourself to a view of each of these films. You will certainly not regret it.

And, if you are still jonesing for more classic stuff, I copped a copy of the recently released digitized 5.1 dolby Help, the Beatles second film. Richard Lester, who also made A Hard Day's Night, The Three, and Four Musketeers, How I Won the War, Juggernaut, and a bunch of other great British films guided the fab four through 90 minutes of total stupid lunacy that is still as fun and fresh as it was in 1965. The film has a terrific supporting cast (Elanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, Roy Kinner, and Leo McKern) and, well, there is something so great about seeing The Beatles as younguns.