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The Last Waltz
Perfect 66 Points 1978

Turn it up! I’d done just that right before an opening title card instructed “This film should be played loud!” You don’t say. Clapton, Van Morrison, Dylan, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, the Band: Of course turn it up.

The Last Waltz has been lauded as a landmark concert film since it appeared i…

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WikChip Video There is a song of dream comfort.
Love & Mercy
Perfect 66 Points 2015

Love & Mercy is as much the story of one man’s mental illness as the story of his treasured musical genius. The man is Brian Wilson, the illness is schizoaffective disorder and the music is that of The Beach Boys. The movie is perfect, as inspired as a uniquely inspired Beach Boys song. _Good, …

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WikChip Video Whoopi & Nicolle rave over Brian Wilson
Keith Richards:...
Great 66 Points 2015

Less a concert film than a rockstar biography, Keith Richards: Under the Influence uses the structure of the old bluesman’s 2015 solo album as inspiration for a look back at his half-century career atop the pops.

“I ain’t a popstar anymore”, he says ironically if accurately. But he’s hardly …

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WikChip Video Keith @ the Press Conference, 9:20 in
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…

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WikChip Video Václav Havel was a big Zappa fan.
The Blue Angel
Really Great 66 Points 1930

Seminal movie, thy name is The Blue Angel, Der Blaue Engel in its native German. Josef von Sternberg was 36 when he paired unknown Marlene Dietrich with eminent Emil Jannings. Dietrich and von Sternberg rocketed straight to Hollywood. Jannings was left behind, kind of like in the story its…

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WikChip Video Falling In Love Again with Marlene
The Sapphires
Great 66 Points 2012

Sweet soul music forms the soundtrack of this infectiously enjoyable Australian musical-comedy. Telling the truthy tale of four black girls from Down Under who performed American soul music for U.S. GIs and Marines in Vietnam, The Sapphires tickles, touches and torches in equal measure.

Bla…

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WikChip Video The Sapphires' smoking hot What A Man
Inside Llewyn D...
Perfect 66 Points 2013

The Coen Brothers latest is one of their best, strong praise indeed for the creators of classics that include The Big Lebowski, Intolerable Cruelty and Miller’s Crossing. Yet their evocation of a fictionalized early Sixties folk scene is pitch perfect. Star turns, outstanding songs and more tha…

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WikChip Video Justin & Carey sing Five Hundred Miles
There's No Busi...
Really Great 66 Points 1954

There’s No Business Like Show Business and there was no show business phonier than vaudeville, till movies. So an overtly phony movie about vaudeville makes for a phony convergence. It was perhaps the last of the musical extravaganzas, a calorically rich compendium of Irving Berlin’s showstoppi…

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WikChip Video Marilyn Monroe & Donald O'Connor: Sta...
Amazing Grace
Really Great 66 Points 2018

Aretha Franklin was never even that close to being one of my favorite soul singers. There, I’ve said it.
Diana Ross, Nina Simone & Mavis Staples all found more favor with me than did the Queen of Soul.

That’s now chang…

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WikChip Video The most sought-after concert film? Yes!
Yesterday
Great 66 Points 2019

Yesterday is the best high-concept movie in recent memory. What if the entire world never knew of the Beatles? No Hey Jude, no Sgt. Peppers, no Revolution, no Fab Four. John, Paul, George & Ringo, just lads.

Except one guy never forgot, a failed singer-songwriter who only needed one gr…

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WikChip Video The only singer who knows the Beatles