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"Stranger Than Fiction" is the long-running documentary series at IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave at 3rd St), one with great taste in movies and enviable access to directors. Tonight at 8:30pm, they'll be showing 1989's Depeche Mode: 101—and before you wrinkle your nose, consider a few things. First, you really should be a fan of Depeche Mode, a band that wrote brilliant pop songs. Second, this isn't your ordinary concert doc: It's loaded with unusual moments, like a shot of counting the merch money after a robust night of t-shirt sales. The codirectors are D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, both of who will be there tonight for a Q&A. (Pennebaker is the legend who made the immortal Bob Dylan doc Dont Look Back—but he once confided to me that he thinks his Depeche Mode film is better.)
But the real reason why Depeche Mode: 101 deserves your time is deeper: Besides capturing the band's breakthrough Rose Bowl shows, it follows the stories of several DM superfans, loaded with enthusiasm and personal dramas of their own. Legend has it that this approach (radical at the time) led MTV to consider making its own semiscripted documentary series—a thought that eventually resulted in the first season of The Real World. So it's not a stretch to call Depeche Mode: 101 the beginning of reality TV, for good and ill. And you can pretend that you don't watch any reality TV whatsoever, but that's still significant. Check out the film—it's way better than anything involving a Kardashian.