MovieSorter

loading Title loading Tws summary ▼ loading Trust loading Year Viewable
Walk Hard: The ...
Very Good 98 Points 2007

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video The whole movie summed up to a song
Whiplash
Very Good 17 Points 2014

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…

Full Review »
8 Mile
Very Good 66 Points 2002

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Eminem's Lose Yourself set to 8 Mile ...
Beyond the Sea
Good 83 Points 2004

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Kate Bosworth models Sandra Dee
1 Reply
  • BrianSez – Regarding "Wick's Review":http://www.viewguide.com/m...
Gainsbourg: A H...
Good 66 Points 2010

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Musician's Beauty: Gainsbourg & Bardot
No One Knows Ab...
Good 66 Points 2010

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Revolution Rock: Persian Cats trailer
Classic Albums:...
Good 66 Points 1999

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Image Genius at work with his synthesizer
Classic Albums:...
Good 66 Points 2006

‘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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Sunshine of Your Love 4 R&R HoF Induc...
Eat That Questi...
Good 66 Points 2016

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Video Václav Havel was a big Zappa fan.
In Old California
Good 66 Points 1942

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…

Full Review »
WikChip Image John Wayne, the Boston Dandy