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John C. Reilly’s Walk Hard plays like a feature-film SNL skit, all the more because many in the large cast are SNL players, including Kristen Wiig, Tim Meadows & Chris Parnell. Weekend Update never arrives, but you half expect it to. Often funny yet strivingly ambitious, Walk Hard’s reach wel…
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The whole movie summed up to a song
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A must see for drummers and jazz fans, this movie will also please anyone who’s in for some good and tense drama. Miles Teller does a bang up job (pun intended) as the driven musician desperately trying to improve family and make it big. A little cheesy, but the antics are engrossing – so all i… |
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Iconic rapper Eminem achieved pop culture immortality in this loose recreation of his emergence from the Detroit hip-hop scene. It’s been said that 8 Mile plays like a rap version of Saturday Night Fever. True enough, though it achieves greater resonance by profiling its own star and memo…
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Eminem's Lose Yourself set to 8 Mile ...
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The Peter Principle personified: Kevin Spacey reached his level of incompetence by writing, directing and starring in Beyond the Sea, a surreal biopic of Bobby Darin. The starring part was mostly fine. The writing and directing parts, not so much. Darin’s terrific songs make the movie an…
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Kate Bosworth models Sandra Dee
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French musical sensation Serge Gainsbourg explains himself in this surreal biopic. Largely unknown here in America, Gainsbourg was a cross between Dylan, Sinatra and Leonard Cohen in France. The women he squired – including Brigitte Bardot during her superstar heyday – comprise a good part of h…
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Musician's Beauty: Gainsbourg & Bardot
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Rock I ran. Whoops, make that Rock Iran, as in the music of rebellion from the theocratically oppressed country threatening nuclear Armageddon. This revolutionary paradox makes Persian Cats the most important political movie of the year. A slice-of-life take on the underground rock music sce…
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Revolution Rock: Persian Cats trailer
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Who’s Next fans – and who’s not – will be delighted by this 50 minute documentary. More celebratory than insightful, it also suffers from a few omissions. However it’s all good when Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle marvel at how their benchmark album came into existence. Long…
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Genius at work with his synthesizer
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‘Quit singing and jam’ remains my reaction to many Cream songs, including from their defining album. So it’s less than optimal that this rockumentary focuses on Disraeli Gears’ lyrics, lyricists and singing. David Fricke’s commentary is terrific however. More to the point, their music ser…
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Sunshine of Your Love 4 R&R HoF Induc...
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Eat That Question is well titled. Frank Zappa in His Own Words is FZ waxing loquacious, repeatedly. Zappa, the pugnacious, contradictory and iconoclastic rockstar, indeed the consummate rockstar, trades heavily on his privilege and arrogance, by turns funny, shocking and ridiculous, a Trump t…
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Václav Havel was a big Zappa fan.
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In Old California is a simpleminded recreation of Old Sacramento in 1848 and then 1849, made in 1942. A quasi-historical tale, it mostly exists to showcase John Wayne looking quite-the-dandy, from Boston even. The settings are the thing now: pre-49er San Francisco and then up the river to Old…
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John Wayne, the Boston Dandy
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