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- DirectorRob ReinerStarsRob ReinerMichael McKeanChristopher GuestSpinal Tap, one of England's loudest bands, is chronicled by film director Marty DiBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour.A rock mockumentary important enough to be selected for preservation in the US Library of Congress, This Is Spinal Tap is one of the all-time greats, and its influence looms large to this day. Ostensibly following a semi-forgotten rock band's comeback tour, Tap manages to hit so many targets – the labyrinthine backstage corridors, the onstage mishaps, the unwanted influence of a resident Yoko Ono figure – that several real-life rockers admit that they struggle to find the humour in it. But their loss is everyone else's gain.
Even if you haven't seen This Is Spinal Tap, you know about it (there's a reason why the BBC iPlayer volume switch goes up to 11), and you've probably been quoting it for years. Shriekingly funny, full of standout performances and containing some of the best parody songs you're ever likely to hear, This Is Spinal Tap is so much better than you could ever expect from a film starring Harry Shearer (the voice of Ned Flanders), and Baron Haden-Guest. Stuart Heritage - DirectorD.A. PennebakerStarsBob DylanAlbert GrossmanBob NeuwirthDocumentary covering Bob Dylan's 1965 tour of England, which includes appearances by Joan Baez and Donovan.DA Pennebaker's 1967 documentary is significant because it may be the first serious attempt to show what was actually happening in rock'n'roll as it struggled to find maturity. The film follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of England – just a year before the famous one, in which he affronted his traditional folk audience by plugging in his guitar – which proved to be a watershed period in his life, resulting in his being heckled at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester with the sanctimonious one-liner "Judas!".
By then, though, Dylan didn't much care, and, if nothing else, the film proves it. Pennebaker has said since that the title came from African-American baseball player Satchel Paige, who once said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." This would appear to be Dylan's philosophy of the time: out was the fresh-faced folkie look, replaced by leather and shades and a spidery, speed-freak demeanour. Gone too were the camaraderies of the old folk scene; what shocked audiences when the film was first released was Dylan's bite-the-hand-that-feeds attitude, not simply to his audiences but also the press, whom he treated with arrogance and contempt.
Seen now, the film is a perfect time capsule, practically the big bang of modern rock. Through Pennebaker's film we see for the first time the machinations of an artist who knows he has to destroy his past to create a future – something the Beatles did in a more passive-aggressive way by refusing to tour – but we also see the start of the bemused media's attempt to co-opt and contain a youth movement that is growing and evolving by the minute. The proto-music video clip that shows Dylan dismissively holding up the lyrics to Subterranean Homesick Blues behind the Savoy hotel has become its MTV legacy, but in reality Don't Look Back is about much more than that – it is about the making of a modern rock star, a role Dylan obligingly played to perfection. Damon Wise - DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsRobbie RobertsonMuddy WatersNeil YoungA film account and presentation of the final concert of The Band.
- DirectorRichard ThorpeStarsElvis PresleyJudy TylerMickey ShaughnessyAfter serving time for manslaughter, young Vince Everett becomes a teenage rock star.The spoiling of a raw but provincial and naive talent – fleeced by cheating managers and ruined by the toxic side-effects of fame – has been the backbone of the rock'n'roll movie ever since, but Jailhouse Rock, only Elvis Presley's third movie as an actor, after the soporific Love Me Tender and Loving You, still gives a jolt. Starring Presley as Vince Everett, a short-fused construction worker jailed for manslaughter after defending himself in a bar brawl, the film is a particular favourite of Quentin Tarantino, who penned the ultimate tribute to it in his script for True Romance. "In Jailhouse Rock," says Clarence Worley, "[Elvis] was everything rockabilly's about. I mean, he is rockabilly. Mean, surly, nasty, rude. In that movie he couldn't give a *beep* about nothing except rockin' and rollin', living fast, dying young and leaving a good-looking corpse."
That the film was made by 61-year-old Richard Thorpe, a mostly unremarkable director for hire since the silent era, is especially fascinating, since the film not only nails the dangerous allure of rock'n'roll – Vince frequently loses his temper in self-destructive situations – it completely captures the generation gap that it caused. On the one hand there is Hank Houghton (Mickey Shaughnessy), Vince's prison mentor who sings clapped-out country and western, and on the other there is the sophisticated social circle of the film's love interest, Peggy Van Alden (Judy Tyler). One incredible scene finds Peggy taking Vince to a middle-class party, where the talk is of jazz and a lady who lunches describes atonality as a passing phase. "What do you think, Mr Everett?" Presley's dead-eyed retort is the film in a nutshell: "Lady, I don't know what the hell you talkin' about." DW - DirectorCurtis HansonStarsEminemBrittany MurphyKim BasingerFollows a young rapper in the Detroit area, struggling with every aspect of his life; he wants to make it big but his friends and foes make this odyssey of rap harder than it may seem.John Ford once opined that it was easier to teach an actor to ride than a cowboy to act. He never made a musical and thus remained silent on the issue of whether it is easier to teach an actor to sing than a singer to act. Rap artists, like opera singers, are engaged in a kind of dramatic performance and have made the transition quite naturally in movies that reflect the conflicts of the black ghettos that inspire their numbers - one thinks of Ice Cube in in Boyz N the Hood and and the late Tupac Shakur in Gridlock'd. Eminem is fortunate to make his movie debut in 8 Mile.
The film was shot in Eminem's native Detroit, the most rundown of America's great cities, in steady decline since the appalling riots of 36 years ago. The title refers to the Eight Mile Road, the perimeter that divides the dangerous, neglected inner city, home to poor whites and deprived blacks where Eminem was reared, from the relatively well-off suburbs where the middle classes reside in closely guarded estates. Rodrigo Prieto, the brilliant Mexican photographer who shot Amores Perros, turns a remorseless eye on the decaying Detroit where Eminem's character, Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith, lives with his feckless, low-life mother (Kim Basinger), her four-year-old daughter, and her seedy lover Greg, a high-school contemporary of Jimmy's.
Almost everything in the film points towards semi-autobiography: the absent father, the uneasy relationships with a wayward mother, a rejected girlfriend and a new lover; his hanging out with a multiracial crew (presumably forged in high school) dedicated to each other's welfare and, above all, the expressive gifts as a rap performer that arise from his specific social situation the way that the blues came out of slavery and its aftermath, and country music arose from the condition of poor Southern whites.
The film 8 Mile most obviously brings to mind is Saturday Night Fever, a tough movie written by an old-time socialist, Norman Wexler, and resembling in tone and texture Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn until it was bowdlerised and reissued in a version that John Travolta's teenybopper fans could see. Philip French - DirectorDavis GuggenheimStarsJimmy PageThe EdgeJack WhiteA documentary on the electric guitar from the point of view of three significant rock musicians: The Edge, Jimmy Page, and Jack White.
- DirectorDamien ChazelleStarsMiles TellerJ.K. SimmonsMelissa BenoistA promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
- DirectorTodd HaynesStarsChristian BaleCate BlanchettHeath LedgerRuminations on the life of Bob Dylan, where six characters embody a different aspect of the musician's life and work.
- DirectorKenny OrtegaStarsMichael JacksonAlex AlAlexandra ApjarovaA compilation of interviews, rehearsals, and backstage footage of Michael Jackson as he prepared for his series of sold-out shows in London.
- DirectorMichael WadleighStarsJoan BaezRichie HavensRoger DaltreyOscar-winning musical chronicle that brilliantly captures the three-day rock concert and celebration of peace and love that became a capstone for the Sixties.
- DirectorJim FieldsMichael GramagliaStarsRick RubinTommy RamoneDee Dee RamoneThe story of the punk rock band The Ramones.Despite the fact that End of the Century documents the makers of some of the most infectiously ecstatic, amphetamine-fun music of all time, no punk rock fan could watch it now without a creeping sense of melancholy. Here are interviews with all the major players: gentle Joey Ramone (dead by 2001), rambunctious Dee Dee Ramone (who died while the film was being made), and gloriously cussed Johnny Ramone (dead the year after it was released), as well as The Clash's Joe Strummer, who went to the big Roundhouse in the Sky in 2002. Even CBGB, the Bowery venue where they first claimed fame, is no more and the subject of its own rock doc. Some still living – founder drummer and producer Tommy, his replacement Marky, his replacement Richie, erstwhile bassist CJ – are also present and correct, contributing to directors Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia's solid 4/4 band documentary.
It's a track-marks-and-all history, that while celebrating the band's vitality, innovation, and huge influence (a savvy map montage illustrates how one early tour inspired and seeded groups like the Dead Kennedys and The Cramps across the country), it never shies from showing the dark side. Coverage is given to Dee Dee's rent boy days, the drugs no rock doc is complete without, and how Joey and Johnny fell out with each other so badly the latter didn't even go to Joey's funeral. There's even material on their fraught collaboration with Phil Spector for the album that gives the film its name, when he brandished guns to force them to stay on partying.
But the strength of the film lies in its quietly authoritative assessment of their skills as performers and musicians, despite the three-chord austerity of the tunes, and how despite their different personalities the core three clicked in place together just enough to produce classics like Sheena Is a Punk Rocker, Blitzkrieg Bop, and I Wanna Be Sedated. Best of all, it's such an absorbing enough story even non-fans find themselves entranced by this history-sweeping account of irascible figures, record-industry ups and downs, and bowl haircuts. Leslie Felperin - DirectorWim WendersStarsCompay SegundoIbrahim FerrerRubén GonzálezAging Cuban musicians whose talents had been virtually forgotten following Castro's takeover of Cuba, are brought out of retirement by Ry Cooder, who travelled to Havana in order to bring the musicians together, resulting in triumphant performances of extraordinary music, and resurrecting the musicians' careers.It could be convincingly argued that this documentary about elderly Cuban musicians whom composer-performer Ry Cooder assembled into a super-group in 1997 still represents the best thing German director Wim Wenders has made since his New German Cinema glory days in the 1970s; or, if you're feeling more generous, his last truly good feature film, Wings of Desire (1987). It's certainly one of his most influential films. Shot on digital, a massive novelty at the time, its jittery handheld aesthetic, bleached-out-in-post colour range, and understated mix of atmospheric observational anecdotes intercut with slabs of unmediated concert and performance footage have become such music-doc clichés it's easy to forget that they were fresh once. This is the film that invented them.
What's more, this in many ways is also the movie, a huge unexpected arthouse hit, that first introduced many people to world music, enticed thousands of tourists to Cuba in search of vintage cars, charming old Communist duffers and swinging parties, and launched scads of follow-up albums. No doubt many a middle-class dinner party was soundtracked by its sultry mix of mambos, boleros and cha-chas.
But, man, the music really is great. The sequence where Ibrahim Ferrer, the once-famous bolero singer whom Cooder found shining shoes in the street, sings Silencio with Omara Portuondo, is a neck-shiverer of the highest order, a moment made all the more tender by their almost-fragile voices, showing off a mastery of phrasing that only comes with age and experience. Ruben Gonzalez's darting, elegant piano solo represents another showstopper.
Meanwhile, it's impossible not to be seduced by the laid-back, amused vibe as the camera follows cigar-puffing Compay Segundo around town in search of the titular dancehall, or be charmed by his hopes to father, as a nonagenarian, a sixth child. The scene where the members wander around New York awestruck by capitalism feels a little staged and gimcrack, but it's but a fleeting duff moment in an otherwise enchanting work. LF - DirectorRichard LesterStarsJohn LennonPaul McCartneyGeorge HarrisonOver two "typical" days in the life of The Beatles, the boys struggle to keep themselves and Sir Paul McCartney's mischievous grandfather in check while preparing for a live TV performance.That Hard Day's Night should still be a movie milestone 50 years after it was first released is astounding, since it was conceived as a $150,000 loss-leader that would recoup its budget from US album sales. Directed by a jazz fan, Richard Lester, who was approved of by its subjects because of his close ties with the stars of BBC radio's comedy series The Goon Show, the first Beatles movie only had one proviso: that it had to be in cinemas before Beatlemania died an inevitable death. "We started shooting in March 1964 and had to be in the cinema by July 7, because United Artists genuinely thought the Beatles would be a spent force by then," said Lester.
TV writers Johnny Speight and Galton and Simpson were considered but unavailable, so Lester turned to Liverpool screenwriter Alun Owen, who was inspired by the band's description of their quotidian routine as "a train, and a room, and a car, and a room, and a room" to make the film "an exaggerated day in the life of the Beatles". With no plot to speak of – the band travel from Liverpool to London to film a TV show – Lester was able to focus on character, developing the variously sarcastic and playful personas that had been adopted by the band in recent months.
More importantly, perhaps, he created some striking musical set-pieces in a way that hadn't been done before. Chief among these is a scene in the baggage car of a train: the band are enjoying a respite from their fans, playing cards, watched by Paul's "grandfather" (Wilfred Bramble), when almost imperceptibly the moment segues into the lip-synched song I Should Have Known Better… and the modern music video is born. Said Lester, "I like to think it was the first time that had happened so casually on film – a development from the Stanley Donen musicals, like On the Town or Singin' in the Rain, which had dream sequences and gave you that sense of being in two realities at once." DW - DirectorAnton CorbijnStarsSam RileySamantha MortonCraig ParkinsonA profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to die by suicide at the age of 23.The portraits of Joy Division by the photographer Anton Corbijn contributed to the band's austere iconography; so it's fitting that Corbijn made his feature debut with Control, a film about Joy Division's singer Ian Curtis, who killed himself in May 1980 at the age of 23. Corbijn shoots in metallic black and white, the better to emphasise his cast's sunken cheeks and the grim Macclesfield landscape through which Curtis (Sam Riley) trudges in a donkey jacket with "HATE" emblazoned on the back.
But Control doesn't leave its subject's sombre mythology entirely unchecked. Corbijn and his screenwriter, Matt Greenhalgh (adapting the book Touching From a Distance by Curtis's widow, Deborah), recognise that this story has elements of the gloomy but dryly funny kitchen-sink films of the 1950s and 1960s, and have fashioned their picture accordingly. That means you get something you wouldn't expect — laughter amidst the darkness. Most of the humour comes courtesy of Rob Gretton (Toby Kebbell), who delivers a monologue (littered with a c-word that isn't "control") outlining why he should manage the band. By this time, Curtis is married to Debbie (Samantha Morton) and chafing against domesticity. Add to this his epilepsy and depression, the pressures of Joy Division's success, and an affair with the journalist Annik Honoré (Alexandra Maria Lara), and you can see why he was never going to be Manchester's answer to Sacha Distel.
The film takes its time cataloguing the singer's indecisive shuttling between Debbie and Annik, but then it would be hard to convey the intensity of his brief life without this degree of scrutiny, or performances as heartfelt as those of Morton and Riley (who also does his own singing). Lara fares less well in the sketchier role of Annik but, in her favour, she delivers the immortal line "Tell me about Macclesfield" in a Belgian drawl without wincing. A few of Corbijn's touches, such as the illuminated Sex Pistols marquee that fizzles out the moment Joy Division is formed, are straight from The Beginner's Guide to Biopics. What distinguishes the film is its skill in balancing both the public version of Curtis and the private one this concealed. RG - DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsDavid ByrneBernie WorrellAlex WeirConsidered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time, the live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.Young director Jonathan Demme teamed with the eccentric David Byrne for this concert film that ranks of one of the greatest of all time. The film features some amusing behind the scenes moments with Byrne (including Byrne interviewing himself), but not surprisingly, the best moments take place on stage. Wild camera angles and lighting add to the fun, but the real show is in the band's electric performance. A band's hits generally sound different on stage, but rarely do they sound better. The Talking Heads were always known as a great live band and Stop Making Sense is all the proof they'll ever need. -IGN
- DirectorAlbert MayslesDavid MayslesCharlotte ZwerinStarsMick JaggerKeith RichardsMick TaylorWhen three hundred thousand members of the Love Generation collided with a few dozen Hells Angels at San Francisco's Altamont Speedway, the bloody slash that transformed a decade's dreams into disillusionment was immortalized on this film.One of the greatest Rock N' Roll docs ever made, Gimme Shelter follows the Rolling Stones' 1969 concert at Altamont. You've likely heard the story of the famous stabbing death of the unlucky individual who challenged the Hell's Angels' security, but Gimme Shelter has much more to offer. This is the world's greatest rock band at the absolute prime of their amazing career. The Maysles Brothers manage to capture a very intimate behind the scenes look at the band along with priceless cameos from the likes of young Tina and Ike Turner and countless others. It's an entertaining film and a piece of rock history. -IGN
- DirectorJohn LandisStarsJohn BelushiDan AykroydCab CallowayJake Blues rejoins with his brother Elwood after being released from prison, but the duo has just days to reunite their old R&B band and save the Catholic home where the two were raised, outrunning the police as they tear through Chicago.Featuring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd in their alternate blues-playing identities, brothers Jake and Elwood Blues, 1980's The Blues Brothers has plenty of musical goodness, not to mention one of the greatest car chase scenes in the history of movies. Directed by John Landis, the film centers around newly reunited brothers Jake and Elwood Blues who are inspired to get their band back together. It's full of Belushi and Aykroyd's trademark deadpan humor, slapstick goodness and stylized musical numbers. The Blues Brothers boasts appearances by music legends Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Gary U.S. Bonds, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. -IGN
- DirectorEthan CoenJoel CoenStarsOscar IsaacCarey MulliganJohn GoodmanA week in the life of a young singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961.INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS follows a week in the life of a young folk singer as he navigates the Greenwich Village folk scene of 1961. Guitar in tow, huddled against the unforgiving New York winter, he is struggling to make it as a musician against seemingly insurmountable obstacles-some of them of his own making.
- DirectorScott HicksStarsGeoffrey RushArmin Mueller-StahlJustin BrainePianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano, to popular if not critical acclaim.Based on a true story, this is the wonderfully emotional movie about David Helfgott growing up, being both pushed and pulled towards the piano and the infamous Rachmaninov 3.
Driven to excel by a tyrannic father and his own ambition to make him proud, David is driven to insanity. - DirectorRobert AltmanStarsKeith CarradineKaren BlackRonee BlakleyOver the course of a few hectic days, numerous interrelated people prepare for a political convention.Based on a true story, this is the wonderfully emotional movie about David Helfgott growing up, being both pushed and pulled towards the piano and the infamous Rachmaninov 3.
Driven to excel by a tyrannic father and his own ambition to make him proud, David is driven to insanity. mrqe.com - DirectorOndi TimonerStarsAnton NewcombeCourtney Taylor-TaylorJoel GionA documentary on the once-promising American rock bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, and the friendship/rivalry between their respective founders, Anton Newcombe and Courtney Taylor.Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols provides the narration for Ondi Timoner's DIG!, which documents the divergent paths of two rock bands with similar influences. While the Warhols, self-described as the "most well-adjusted band in America," sold a lot of records in Europe before achieving commercial success in the U.S., the Brian Jonestown Massacre, led by the mercurial Anton Newcombe, self-destructed in an orgy of drug abuse and internal squabbling. Timoner followed the groups' fortunes for about seven years. In the late '90s, the groups met, and Taylor forged a friendship with Newcombe, whom he greatly admired. The bands often played together, and while BJM were being courted for a seemingly surefire major label deal, the Warhols signed with Capitol. As Timoner documents, the record deal and its attendant perks marked the beginning of a rift between the bands, as BJM members seemed to resent the Warhols' success, while the Warhols seemed all too willing to rely on their association with their out-of-control counterparts in BJM to gain a certain punk credibility. Timoner focuses more heavily on the antics of Newcombe and his band, capturing a spectacular meltdown at an industry showcase, a poorly planned tour that finds the band playing a ten-hour show for an audience of around ten people, and an embarrassing drug bust on the road. Eventually, the division between the former friends reaches the point where BJM puts out a record attacking the Warhols, and Newcombe, struggling with a life-threatening drug problem, begins stalking them at their shows, either in a misguided attempt to gain publicity or with sincere ill will. DIG! won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, and was selected for the 2004 edition of New Directors/New Films mrqe.com
- DirectorJohn CarneyStarsGlen HansardMarkéta IrglováHugh WalshA modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.
- DirectorJonathan DemmeStarsNeil YoungEmmylou HarrisPegi YoungA film shot over during a two-night performance by Neil Young at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.In the fall of 2005, Neil Young returned to the sound and style of his iconic 1972 album Harvest with Prairie Wind, a set of ten songs which look to America's past and future accompanied by sweet but rough-hewn country-rock. The album was written and recorded after Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm, and shortly before he went into the hospital for surgery for the condition, Young played a pair of special concerts at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, the original home of the Grand Ole Opry, where he performed the Prairie Wind album in full along with a set of old favorites. Filmmaker Jonathan Demme was on hand to film the shows, and Neil Young: Heart of Gold was culled from the best moments of those two concerts, as well as interviews in which Young talks about his life and music. Emmylou Harris appears as a guest vocalist, and Young's band includes long time accompanists Ben Keith on pedal steel, pianist Spooner Oldham and Pegi Young (Neil's wife) on acoustic guitar and backing vocals. By the way, Neil Young enjoyed a full recovery after his surgery. mrqe.com
- DirectorJohn CarneyStarsKeira KnightleyMark RuffaloAdam LevineA chance encounter between a down-and-out music business executive, and a young singer songwriter new to Manhattan, turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents.
- DirectorDoug PrayStarsThe AlliesA-TrakCrazeThe story of the hip-hop DJ from the birth of hip-hop to the invention of scratching and "beat-juggling" vinyl, to the more recent "turntablism" movement. Underdogs and virtuosos who have radically changed the way we hear and create music.