67 Best Releases From the Genre Music (Page 2)
Wayne's World
When we talk about what movies “couldn’t be made today,” it’s less about what tweaks would need to be employed to make them for a contemporary audience, and more about whining that P.C. culture has killed comedy and it’s never coming back. It also doesn’t take into account that pre-2000s comedy wasn’t entirely a lawless land of misogyny and casual homophobia. There are quite a few films from that era that could easily be made today, just as they were then, with virtually no tweaking or updating for an audience of “snowflakes” that doesn’t actually exist. One of those was Penelope Spheeris’s Wayne’s World, released thirty years ago today. Continue Reading →
The Sky Is Everywhere
YA literature often gets a bad rap for being frivolous and superficial, caught up in meaningless fluff like who to go to the big prom with, or what kind of makeover you need in order to get the boy you like to pay attention to you. In reality, much of YA lit has a surprisingly dark streak, and is more obsessed with death and dying than Stephen King. Take a look at what novels are burning up the teen reader charts, and they’re more likely than not to feature a protagonist facing, if not their own death, then the death of a parent, a friend, or a significant other. They may still end up stuck having to choose between two people to go to the prom with, but not until after they’re able to work through their grief and learn to move on. Continue Reading →
Nothing Compares
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 Sundance Festival) Continue Reading →
Riverdance: The Animated Adventure
SimilarAs It Is in Heaven (2004), Volver (2006), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971),
In 1996, a peaceful time of American prosperity between the Cold War and Twitter, music’s biggest things were imports. One was Canadian Queen Celine Dion, with her classic “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now” playing from car radios on constant rotation. The other was Irishman Michael Flatley who came to our shores with the step dancing phenomenon Riverdance. Continue Reading →
劇場版 美少女戦士セーラームーンCosmos 前編
SimilarNausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), Paris Can Wait (2016), Princess Mononoke (1997),
StarringAyane Sakura, Hisako Kanemoto, Junko Minagawa, Kotono Mitsuishi, Marina Inoue, Mariya Ise, Megumi Hayashibara, Sayaka Ohara, Shizuka Itoh, Shoko Nakagawa,
StudioKing Records, Studio Deen, Toei Animation, Toei Company,
The modern era of musicals moves fits and spurts. Over this young century, the form has repeatedly fallen in and out of fashion. 2021 was an on year—one pulsing full of musicals, which ranged from towering works like Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story remake to the dreaded and thoroughly mocked Dear Evan Hansen. Many of them were quite experimental too, like Leos Carax and Sparks’ Annette and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s tick, tick…BOOM!. But even against that august competition, Joe Wright’s Cyrano carves out a place as one of the most imaginative musicals of this modern era. Although The National’s newly-composed songs don’t immediately gel with the iconic story being told, Cyrano makes its way towards a moving, complex finale, thanks to a stellar set of performances. Continue Reading →
Sing 2
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), Ice Age (2002), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005),
StarringFisher Stevens,
Aadrman's original 1989 Creature Comforts did something unique. Director Nick Park took interviews with everyday Britain residents and then put those vocals into the mouths of stop-motion animated zoo animals. The result was fascinating, as two disparate elements combined to tap into the daily woes which inform our lives. Whether you’re a lion trapped in an exhibit, or a man just yearning for the space of your original home country, melancholy emotions are universal. Continue Reading →
tick, tick... BOOM!
SimilarDriving Miss Daisy (1989), Erin Brockovich (2000), Maria Full of Grace (2004), Pi (1998), Stranger Than Paradise (1984), The Straight Story (1999),
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StarringRenée Elise Goldsberry,
New York City. January 29th, 1990. Composer and playwright Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield) turns 30 at the end of the week. SUPERBIA, the dystopian science fiction musical he's spent most of a decade writing, is about to have its first-ever full workshop. It's a critical moment for Jon, one that could well make his career (or break it irreparably). If SUPERBIA bombs, Jon will be washed up before he ever set out to sea. To crank up the pressure, the show is missing a critical song, a tune that the whole affair will turn on. Continue Reading →
Diana: The Musical
Next year will mark, improbably, 25 years since Diana, Princess of Wales was killed in a horrific car accident while being chased down by aggressive photographers. Like Marilyn Monroe, another unlucky blonde who was mercilessly hounded by the press before dying too young, Diana’s image has only become more indelible in the years following her death. Also like Marilyn, lots of money has been made exploiting her, in endless bullshit attempts to tell her “true” story. Musician/lyricists David Bryan and Joe DiPietro cash in on her too with the Broadway musical Diana, filmed and presented on Netflix for our viewing “pleasure.” The producers of Dear Evan Hansen owe Bryan and DiPietro a great deal of gratitude, because Evan Hansen is no longer the worst musical of 2021. Continue Reading →
The Velvet Underground
Watch afterEverything Everywhere All at Once (2022), Thor: Love and Thunder (2022),
To listen to the Velvet Underground today is to marvel at how very much its own thing it was. Their droning, dirge-like songs, often accompanied by the discordant squeaking of a viola, addressed such unsavory subjects as drug addiction and sadomasochism, and seemed to be designed for listeners who neither identified with hippie folk or rebellious rock and roll. They were so far ahead of their time that even more than five decades later no one else has sounded quite like them yet. Todd Haynes’ documentary, just called The Velvet Underground, captures their lightning in a bottle moment in music history, eschewing the tropes of the genre in favor of a dizzying sound and visual landscape. Continue Reading →
Avicii: True Stories
If you were a respected artist named David who wanted to make a movie that would show viewers the weirdness that lay barely hidden beyond the well-manicured lawns of small-town America, the fall of 1986 was clearly your time to thrive. Of course, the most notable example of this was David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, which detonated in theaters in September of that year and caused reverberations that are still being felt today. Continue Reading →
The American Astronaut
(This is part of our ongoing NYFF coverage.) Continue Reading →
Så som i himmelen
Tea Lindeberg and star Flora Ofelia Hoffman Lindhal craft a stupendous study of a young woman's struggle with her faith amidst horror.
Perhaps the best film at TIFF was one of the first made available to audiences. A hidden gem from Denmark, Tea Lindeberg’s As in Heaven spins a stupendous picture from a quiet premise. The story of a young girl from a devout Christian farming family in Denmark set to break generations of tradition by going to school instead of shackling herself to her family’s land, As in Heaven is as wrenching as it is extraordinary. It’s a bleak picture to be sure, but it’s a powerful look at the ways religion and tradition starkly contrast with a slowly but surely changing world. Lise (Flora Ofelia Hoffman Lindhal) is an ethereal figure, bright and luminating with hope. That hope is quickly dashed by her father’s unhappiness – if not unwillingness – to send her to school. Moreover, Lise’s mother is about to have another child, growing their large family still further. Lise does housework and helps to entertain/wrangle her assorted younger siblings. She also has her eyes on a dashing tall young man who works on the farm named Jens Peter (Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt).
As in Heaven’s genre-blending filmmaking offers a bleak, compelling, blood-soaked version of a Bergman-esque religious parable. Continue Reading →
The Nowhere Inn
In one of The Nowhere Inn’s several recurring clips, Carrie Brownstein confides in her best friend. She says that she wants to do bigger things. She declares herself as being stuck in a rut creatively and, acquiescing to the possibility that only those closest to her truly get something out of her work. As for the friend in question, she’s Annie Clark—the Annie Clark. But in spite of the casual intimacy of the conversation, there’s a clear disconnect. Carrie is Carrie, often behind the scenes. Annie is St. Vincent, on the stage and in the public eye. They’re both themselves, but one has more clout, the kind that allows for more artistic leeway. Continue Reading →
Jagged
SimilarCléo from 5 to 7 (1962),
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
Alison Klayman's chronicle of the Canadian singer's rise to fame centers around her seminal 1995 album, and the trail it blazed for female artists.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.)
This year’s edition of the Toronto International Film Festival finally got a hint of scandal—albeit of the most well-mannered variety imaginable—when it was announced that rock star Alanis Morissette, the focus of the new documentary Jagged, would not be attending the film’s gala world premiere, reportedly due to what the Washington Post dubbed “unspecified issues with the finished product.” Continue Reading →
Listening to Kenny G
StudioHBO Documentary Films,
Penny Lane's profile on the smooth jazz superstar can't quite muster up enough energy to make its explorations of his notoriety (good and bad) sing.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival.)
If you learn nothing else from watching the documentary Listening to Kenny G, you will at least come away from it with the knowledge that the saxophone player who essentially serves as the living embodiment of “smooth jazz” is the best-selling instrumentalist of all time. You will know this because it is a fact that is invoked repeatedly throughout the film by his fans and supporters, generally when pressed as to what it is that they like about him. Continue Reading →
All the Streets Are Silent
Jeremy Elkin's documentary is a love letter to the skater culture of the '90s, and the punks and rebels that filled it.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2021 Tribeca film festival.)
It took me towards the middle of Jeremy Elkin's documentary All the Streets Are Silent to realize that Eli Gesner, the videographer behind much of the New York skateboard culture in the 90s, was the prototype for the character Fourth Grade in Jonah Hill’s mid90s. Fourth Grade was the kid I identified with the most, being the shy and silent observer to the antics and adventures of a tight-knit crew of talented skaters and artists. All throughout that film, he captured it all with his trusty palmcorder, only to eventually debut the footage in a video mixtape at the end. Such an expression that I also didn’t realize until All the Streets Are Silent was inspired by Gesner’s work as a kid with a camera. Continue Reading →
Crazy Rich Asians
The director-writer & star of Asia talk death, love & the immigration experience.
A mother, her rebellious teen daughter, and an illness. It’s a story that’s been done and redone so many times that it’s basically become a subgenre. But in Ruthy Pribar’s feature directorial debut Asia, a tender and devastating character study about motherhood and loss, everything about the subgenre gets rejuvenated. Not because it breathes a new life into it, but because it tells the story in an understated way, with a level of realism that recalls the works of the Dardenne brothers more than it does The Fault in Our Stars.
The titular character, Asia (Alena Yiv), is a 35-year-old single mother who immigrated herself and her daughter from Russia to Israel years ago to start a new life. By day (and sometimes night), Asia works tirelessly as a nurse. But when she’s not taking care of her patients, Asia likes to spend time at a bar, drinking alone and flirting with strangers, or having sex with her colleague in his car as if she’s still a teenager. Continue Reading →
A Prairie Home Companion
A few days ago, Quentin Tarantino went on a podcast. The topic of final films came up with him stating he wanted to go out on a high note because, in his view, there had been too many cases of great filmmakers going out with substandard works. Now, this isn’t always the case, but there is a long list of directors who concluded their careers on less-than-stellar works. Continue Reading →