It’s the duty of any self-respecting music fan to check out the new documentary It Might Get Loud when it starts slinking into theaters August 14th. There’s a reason why this film was a favorite at the Berlin, Sundance, and Toronto film fests: it rocks, figuratively and literally.  Directed by Davis Guggenheim – who previously helmed the eco classic An Inconvenient Truth – It Might Get Loud explores the history of the electric guitar through the sounds and stories of three of its greatest players: The Edge, Jimmy Page, and Jack White. The film’s greatest strength is its casual, impressionistic style: it avoids the expected history lesson in favor of the Led Zep master, U2 genius and iconoclastic White Stripe comparing notes and war stories. It’s thrilling to see Jack White build a guitar in five minutes and then jam out gnarled blues riffs on the ramshackle instrument. Also incredible is Page walking us through the songs that drew him to the six strings in the first place: seeing him play detailed air guitar to Link Wray’s “Rumble” is priceless. How The Edge discovered his innovative sound provides the film’s centerpiece and emotional core, however: when he takes the viewer on a tour of U2’s first-ever rehearsal space, it’s hard not to get choked up. Of course, the best part of It Might Get Loud is when it finally lives up to its title in a climactic jam session between Edge, Page and White; the moment when these three masters from three different generations parry and thrust, trying to outdo each other while getting their idiosyncratic styles in sync, well… Let’s just say the intensity goes all the way up to “11.”