I don’t like the idea of posting about movies I’ve not seen, and I don’t want to lead this blog down the Ain’t It Cool News road, but considering the recent posts about music documentaries, I thought some here might be interested in some upcoming music related films.
I just picked up the LA Film Festival schedule and there’s a few interesting ones mentioned.
Be Here To Love Me is about Texas singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. Townes alway struck me a bit as the Harry Nillson of country. Others had hits with his songs, and he was loved by the best in the biz, but that’s often not enough.
Last Days which is another imagined reality from Gus Van Sant, about the end of Mr. Cobain. Who knows? Elephant was good, so I might give this a chance.
New York Dolla doc about “Killer” Kane from the Dolls and the band in general. Not one of my favorite bands, though the fact that Kane became a born-again Mormon is somewhat intriguing. Morrissey is in it.
The Fearless Freaks A doc about the Flaming Lips. If an active band deserves to be chronicled, it’s almost certainly the Lips. It’s directed by Brad Beesley, who was the original director of a movie about my old record label, Fat Possum. He was fired, sued, and generally threatened by the label’s owner. Hopefully the Lips have been nicer to Brad than my old employers were.
There’s also a showing of music videos by Floria Sigismondi; stuff by Amon Tobin, Cure, Leonard Cohen, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and more. Hopefully someone’ll be able to put together the rights to release this on DVD.
Wow – I just noticed they are also doing collections of animation from around the world:
Japanese animation from 1925-1946
A Decade of Iranian animation (1970s)
Tales and Legends from Africa
and a collection of rare Walt Disney shorts focused on ALice in Wonderland from 1922 – 1927. Looks like a great festival actually.
all right – one more: Looking through the schedule a little closer I think THIS one might be the standout: The Ape Human resources drone and put-upon family man Harry imagines he could be the next Dostoyevsky if he could just get a little peace and quiet. When he moves into his own apartment to craft his masterpiece, his solitude is broken by an unexpected roommate—a foul-mouthed, Hawaiian shirt-wearing gorilla, eager to share his opinions on life, love, and animal magnetism. Proving he’s more than just Spider-Man’s nemesis, director, co-writer, and star James Franco charismatically embodies the wannabe artist whose instincts threaten to overwhelm his intellect when he embraces his own inner ape.”
Yes, well, that and the fact that Franco was maybe the best actor on Freaks & Geeks (or Kevin Starr… or Busy Phillips…) Well, he was in the top 3 – and that’s still pretty great.
This movie sounds like a cross between Barton Fink and any of the old talking-ape comic books (Gorilla Grodd, Angel & The Ape, Congorilla…). Hopefully this will get to some of the god-forsaken backwater towns you poor bastards live in.
Saw the Flaming Lips movie. It’s good. Quite engrossing, and at times very moving. A bit “Crumb”-like, actually. The film is less about the music and more about the bandmembers’ families (the Fearless Freaks is the name of the neighborhood football team the Coyne family put together), growing up in Oklahoma City. A little too much time devoted to Coyne’s self-annoitment as the King of suburbia.
Still, I liked it.
watched “24 hour party people” last night. enjoyable but i wasn’t entirely sure what it was trying to be. in the extras, the filmmakers say that their film is about the manchester scene of the late 70s/80s and not really about wilson. for me, however, the film worked only as about wilson in an off-kilter kind of way. i didn’t really learn anything about the larger manchester scene–was it all as seat-of-the-pants as factory records? what do the principals make of the discrepancy between curtis’ joy divison and new order’s stadium rock? how about the stone roses? etc. etc. perhaps those already in the know/of the scene can fill that stuff in but for me it wasn’t very much more than a couple of hours spent in amusing company.
New York Doll is a must-see film. Not just somewhat intruguing, but genuinely moving. You’ll laugh, cringe and cry.
John’s recommendations for the film on Killer Kane (above) and Daniel Johnston are worthwhile I’m sure, though I havent seen either yet.
I’ll throw out a couple more recent releases: Stewart Copeland’s long-simmering documentary about the Police: Everyone Stares is finally now out on DVD. Amazon seems to claim it’s region 2 though. ??
The Leonard Cohen doc I’m Your Man comes out Nov. 14
Rude Boy by the Clash, which is not really a docuemntary, but the documentary parts of the Clash playing live are what makes it good, also finally out on DVD. And if I may quote the Columbia Records Marketing Department circa 1979, the “only band that matters.”