OZZY OSBOURNE Says 'God Bless' Movie Is 'Very Honest'

Billboard.com recently spoke to Ozzy Osbourne and his son, Jack Osbourne, about "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne", the feature-length documentary about the life of the legendary heavy metal singer that Jack co-produced. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the two-thumbs-up reception "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne" has received since its April debut at the Tribeca Film Festival:

Jack: "It was going to go one of two ways people either were going to say 'That's a pile of crap!' or 'That's awesome!' It seems to be like everyone's going the way I want it."

On whether it's an accurate portrayal of the BLACK SABBATH frontman's life:

Ozzy: "It's very... honest. When Jack said he was gonna do it, I said, 'All I want you to do is don't make a film to make me happy. Make a film as you.' I didn't say, 'I don't like that, take that out.' Whatever he felt he wanted to do in, I didn't have anything to do with it whatsoever. I let him decide what to do with it."

On being forced to trim an epic story into the allotted time:

Jack: "I would have liked to make it into two movies. The first cut ran two and a half hours. The original BLACK SABBATH section was 45 minutes. It was just too much; when you make a documentary that long, the fans can sit there all day long, but the non-fan is not going to have the patience and excitement, so we had to pick and choose wisely what we wanted to use. We had to really make it the kind of film that grandma, who doesn't like Ozzy Osbourne, could say, 'That's really a good documentary. I learned something from that.'"

On how the DVD will include some more recent observations Ozzy made about the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads in a March 1982 airplane accident:

Jack: "People were frustrated there was nothing of my dad, present day, talking about Randy. In the film we used an archival clip. We have a really emotional (interview) where my dad gets really into talking about Randy and his death and what it meant to him, how he feels this massive level of guilt and remorse over it. So we put that in the DVD."

On how "God Bless Ozzy Osbourne" represents its well-caricatured subject in a way he hasn't been before:

Jack: "I was essentially fed up with my dad having this 'Osbournes'-esque image in the mainstream media. That's really frustrated me. Since 'The Osbournes' (reality TV show) he got sober and became a totally different person, and I wanted to kind of celebrate that. Everyone knows what he's done, so for me this was about more who he is as a person. The focus is not so much Ozzy as it is John. That's the story I wanted to tell."

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