Whiplash (2014)

Whiplash (R)

"Not my TEMPO! &$#!"

A young man enrolled in one of the most prestigious New York music Conservatories gets a chance to play in the advanced Jazz Studio Band where he runs afoul of the classes passionate yet profane director whose manic drive for perfection leads his students towards obsession and revenge in Director Damien Chazelle's semi-autobiographical account of competitive musicianship on the edge.

J.K Simmons of Spider-Man fame bellows through the film as Fletcher, the driven teacher who uses intimidation and physical abuse to find the next Buddy Riches.  His student is the lead, Miles Teller as the drummer who is so intent on hitting it big on the drums that he breaks up with his new girlfriend and alienates his family for more blistering practice time.  The staccato editing compliments the beautifully dark photography, the music is complimented by a fantastic live sound to the audio that moves about the room.  The story is as straight as a drum stick, but it keeps your palms sweaty with an incredible sense of anxiety and dread that Simmon's Fletcher emanates past  the screen into your psyche.  Tension mounts and mounts, releases then mounts again as the ebb and flow of their mutual percussive obsession rattles on, leading to one of the best endings to a film in years.  Revenge and rimshots, passions and profanity, Whiplash lives up to it's name and reputation with gonzo repetition making it one of 2014's best films.  It's all the more delightful for it's low budget brilliance, like a genius drum solo on a street corner with a plastic bucket.

8.5 Don't Forget your Sticks out of 10 (GREAT)

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

Inside Llewyn Davis (R)

"Assholes are like Elbows"

A textured look into the lives on the folk-singing scene of 1960's Greenwich village told as only the Coen Brothers can.  Llewyn is a talented, unsuccessful singer song writer couch surfing his way through obscurity.  He bums rides, beds, cigarettes and spotlights from his fellow New Yorkers, brushing elbows (and greatness) with the likes of Bob Dylan.  He is an insufferable fellow, unpleasant and narrowly selfish, a true starving artist who makes those around him also suffer the pangs.

Llewyn Davis is sometimes an over-the-top loathsome person, seemingly rude and uncaring.  His lovers despise him and curse his name, those that take him into their homes are rewarded with lost family pets and tirades at the dinner table.  Inspired by the autobiography of singer Van Ronk (one of Dylan's inspirations and fellow Village player), the movie is not a recreation but an artistic allegory about the soul of the universal struggling artist.  He plays beautifully but without his deceased singing partner no one listens.  His record producer is a skinflint with a guilty face, a roadtrip to Chicago to audition for the greats is a gloomy forboding affair, his attempts to quit the musical life are a fruitless endeavor.  Llewyn is fated to go unrecognized and unloved, forever trekking through the slush and snow in hole-filled shoes lugging his records and guitar from couch to couch.

Masterfully envisioned and executed by the Coen Brothers (Fargo, No Country), this is one of their perfect films if you have the right ears to hear its dulcet tones.  Their most invisibly surreal and foreboding film since Barton Fink (which also includes the great John Goodman, here as the music scene's Jazz conscience come to pass judgement), Llewyn is cloaked in a mantle of self-loathing that is thick with artistic unfulfillment (which only the curmudgeonly Coens can pull off while still being critical and box office darlings).  The visuals are their strongest yet most subtle, the film sticks with you.  The music is wonderfully rich and period specific, with a full range of Folk covered (from sell out comedy to protest impotency).  Seriously cemented in the Coen's underground oeuvre of self depreciation, Llewyn Davis hits some notes sour with a purpose, tweaks the strings of anti-sentimentalism, blows hard and stomps its feet yet performs no encores, all told through the perceptions of a man fated to repeat himself endlessly, chasing the suppers he can sing for.

9 Orange Tabby Cats out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)

Tangled (2010)

Tangled (PG) - Review

"..web they weave"

Disney attempts to recapture the old Princess magic with Tangled, a retro-modern retelling of Rapunzel and her magical hair.  Strutting handsome rogues, damsels not quite in distress, intelligent horses and just a bit over the line evil stepmothers pack the candy colored scenery and mug for laughs, but the good 'ol Walt Disney touch is simply absent.  The music falls flat to these ears and has no panache (or reason to exist). The story is cobbled together and true to form deviates from the Grimm fairy tale for the sake of sales The art & animation tries to mimic Disney's acquisition Pixar in technique but achieves only a pale copy.  Disney simply proceeds to do what it excels at, making programming for the young and easily entertained, but they have done much much worse in the past.

5 What Can We Personify This Film? out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)

Interstella 5555 (2003)

Interstella 5555 (NR) - Review

"Around the World"

Daft Punk, those Euro-robo-techno pioneers, gather legendary Japanese cartoon director Leiji Matsumoto to create a movie out of their album "Discovery".  The result?  Old fashioned looking anime with repetitive animation cycles shown over the band's hypnotic beats.  The result is a feature length music video with no dialogue and no energy, a throw away tale of blue humanoid aliens held on earth against their will by an evil record executive.  Coherent but not much else, fans of the band will of course enjoy the music but the visuals add almost nothing to experience.

4 Anime Eyes out of 10 (BAD)

Rock N Roll Nightmare (1987)

Rock N Roll Nightmare (R)

"Sex, Dishes, more Sex, more Dishes & then Rock N Roll"

A rock group heads to the Canadian country side to work on a new album free of distraction (except from their own women), where unbeknownst to them Beelezbub and his minions are also looking to rock out with their souls in direct-to-video cheapie Rock N Roll Nightmare.

It's hard to come down on a silly flick like RNR Nightmare, an exuberantly Canadian horror flick with some talented special effects work that tries to do too much with too little, some mildly talented and territorially famous musicians without a lick of acting talent and a director who can point a lens at things but would probably be better off staying home and getting drunk.  It's all fueled by the cult of Thor, or actually Jon Mikl-Thor, a formed body builder aka Glam-rock star aka movie star aka human-meat loaf who couldn't act his way out of a brown paper bag.  It's hard to come down on something so effortlessly lame, there are unconscious shades of Spinal Tap throughout, but down we must go.  Between the endless stilted banter, the countless scenes of doing the dishes, the gratuitously bad love scenes which sometimes run back to back, the Canadian-tinged  accents, the cans of Coke instead of Cocaine, to the hopelessly awfully jaw dropping silly conclusion, all scored with bland aging arena rock, Rock N Roll Nightmare is more like a dream that you wake up from and wonder "must have been something I ate,"  chuckle to yourself and then effortlessly roll over and fall back asleep.

2 Funny Little One Eyed Puppets that steal the show out of 10 (BAD)

True Stories (1986)

True Stories (PG)

"Fighting Fire with fire"

A quasi-musical by David Byrne (frontman of the epitome 80s band The Talking Heads), is a strange lyrical tour through a small Texas town celebrating it's uniqueness and sesquicentennial. Bryne's distinctive music and attitude abound in this quirky portrait of the Texan lifestyle. Available on Streaming. 

7.5 Ten gallon Hats out of 10 (GOOD)

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (1984)

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (NR) - Review

"Big suit, small pretentions."

David Bryne and the Talking Heads, premiere sociological  rock bands of the 1980s, put on an outstanding concert on a dark stage, considered one of the best live music films of all time.  The production slowly builds, starting with Bryne performing Psycho Killer alone on stage with just a boom box and guitar, and as each new song begins another member of the band joins them onstage (which is also continuously forming). The set is bareboned, making the performances by the musicians that much more important, the music that much more poignant. A simple, eclectic viewback into a true art form from the 1980s, Stop Making Sense makes a clear case for postmodern socially concsious rock'n'roll, and as Bryne puts it:
"as we get older and stop making sense/you won’t find her waiting long"

8 Oversized Armanis out of 10 (GREAT)

Purple Rain (1984)

Purple Rain (R) - Review

"More Frills Per Minute"

It is the 1980s in the Midwest, dueling Funk Rock bands are on the scene.  The nefariously cheesy Morris Day and his diabolical Time are trying to make it big at the expense of the rakishly dashing Kid (played by Prince) and his band The Revolution.  Minneapolis is a happening place, but the Kids popularity is on a down curve.  He rides around in cuffs and tails on his big purple motorcycle while his bandmates creativity feels stifled by the Kids sensitive under appreciated artist routine.  He is such a tortured artist that he still lives at home with his parents, who practice routine spousal abuse just to keep the angst up.  When the beautiful Appolonia comes to town to become a big star and falls for our effeminate manbeast, tensions arise and songs are sung.

Purple Rain is by no means a great film.  Coming a hairs breadth away from nonsensical, the typical under dog plot moves generously along to its ultimate glistening conclusion.  The visuals range from upstage band lighting to "oops we forgot to turn the lights on".  The unprofessional acting and obvious improv keep the scenes barely afloat.  The emotional twists throughout the film are laughably sudden and reek of WTF-did-I-just-see? The climax (hah) where he literally ejaculates his music out unto his adoring fans had me laughing out loud (due to its audacity, stupidity or absurdity I'll never know).

The movie however was made to highlight the mystique and music of Prince, and here Purple Rain succeeds loudly.  The fashions, the attitudes, the synth sounds and the eye makeup all scream up from our past.  Unlikely misogyny and long sweaty looks at Prince and from Prince fill the lens; this is a movie for fans to worship their poprock deity while he playacts some nonsense about falling in love and not selling out and keeping his folks alive and right up until the final number being an unrecognized musical genius.  Beautiful women, good editing (and music video montage) and chest out vamping can't completely make up for its innate amaturity in scripting construction and acting.  In the end its a fun staring contest with the sex Prince himself, which is what the movie was made for.  Who will blink first?

6.5 Hoop Earrings out of 10 (GOOD)

Quadrophenia (1979)

Quadrophenia (R) - Review

"Talkin' Bout That Generation"

Jimmy is a mod.  He rides a scooter, lives and works in 1965 London, wears an expensive suit and is a counter culture pill popping menace.  Eschewing his family, his job, his love interests and his friends after a raucous Bank holiday in Brighton where the Mods and Rockers clashed and rioted on the streets, Jimmy meets and begins to idolize Ace Face, who to him is the perfectly heroic mod.  But when his image of Ace gets shattered, will it mean Jimmy has had enough?

Before Tommy, The Who had written the concept album Quadrophenia about life as a Modder.  Quadrophenia is more of a period piece than a pure musical, most of the music comes from real world sources (radios etc).  The soundtrack is fantastic (its not all the Who), the acting and scripting is better than expected (even as its drenched in teenage angst), even the look and period feel of the film has an expertise and love that goes unmatched in most musical film.  Once slickster Ace Face appears onscreen, played by a very young Sting, the film really stops being so episodic and comes into its own.  And yet there is a puerileness and pretension that comes with the subculture territory, leading to some agitation.  Riding around in clothes that cost you a couple months wages on a Vespa bristling with chrome and sideview mirrors, giving up the only friend that ever stood up for you just because he listens to the wrong music is a hell of a life ethic.  The road it leads down can only lead to questions of "Who are you"?  Do do, do do.

7 Dead Keith Moon drum solos out of 10 (GOOD)

The Song Remains the Same (1976)

The Song Remains the Same (PG) - Review

"And they are buying a stairway..."

Led Zeppelin's cult classic is a rock and roll thunderbolt with a chaser of LSD.  The standard concert footage, filmed in the band's apex of popularity, is intercut with varying successful stories chosen by the individual band members.  Some of these are fantastical in nature, some irrationally bizarre, all synch psychedelically with the masterful music of Zep.  The film itself had a troubled production and it shows, but simply being able to see the band in their prime artistically and sonically makes up for any silly post-60s shakiness.  Self propaganda for sure, but these guys wrote the book (or shot the movie) about sex, drugs and rock and roll.

8 LOTR Referrences out of 10 (GREAT)

The Wicker Man (1973)

The Wicker Man (R) - Review

"Something Wicker this way comes"

A puritanical Police sergeant is sent to a remote Scottish island in search of a supposedly lost girl whom he now suspects was sacrificed to appease the local's pagan religious views.

A cult classic reeking of the stench of new agey 1970s incense, the original Wicker Man's continued level of popularity comes as a complete surprise.  From the wooden Hammer-style British acting to the bizarrely staged and awkwardly performed musical numbers, hedonistic female nudity, lack of frightening moments or violence or gore and a overall tone that would have to work really hard to creep out a 8 year old after midnight, Wicker Man is anything but a horror film.  It's a literate mystery hampered by the hippy times that generated it.  The Policeman and his Christian beliefs are as intolerant as those of the heretic Town's folk, it just so happens he is vastly outnumbered.  As am I, in disliking this film almost completely.

3 What, are the Animal Masks supposed to be scary or something?'s out of 10 (BAD)

Head (1968)

Head (G) - Review

"A Hard Day's Sight"

The comparisons between The Monkees (the stars of Head) and the Beatles have been around since their inception, that they were just an American attempt at manufacturing a band that could rival the Fab Four in popularity and sales.  But one thing the Beatles never tried that the Monkees did was star in a psychedlic live action stream of consciousness film that effectively tried to end their own careers.  Allegories of suicide, violence and drug use are abundant, the plotline as as ethereal as reefer smoke.  Scripted by Jack Nicholson and the Monkees with their staff, Head is exactly what it wants to be, a 1960s headtrip full of acid, built around the framework of their successful musical Television series but with the handcuffs taken off.  It looks the way Sgt Peppers sounds, and in that way the Monkees had at last beaten the Beatles to the punch.

5 Groovy Dudes out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)