Movie review - "Songwriter" (1984) *** (warning: spoilers)

 It starts as a mess with random voice over and choppy editing and feels haphazard but I went with it because everyone seems to be having a good time - Willie Nelson in a lead, Kris Kristofferson as a mate, Lesley Ann Downe as a new singer, Richard Sarafin as a villain.

It ambles along, plenty of songs, better casting than Roadie. It's probably at heart a **1/2 movie but I loved the ending where Nelson sells Sarafin Downe's contract and she becomes a Born Again! I loved that. 

Movie review - "The Jolson Story" (1946) ***1/2

 The film is hokey but it works. The colour, the enthusiasm, Larry Parks' energy - he's unremarkable in so many films but playing Jolson forces him to be more active. The movie completely works on its own terms.

Evelyn Keyes is alright - anyone could have played that role. William Demarest plays William Demarest. It hops along. There's a lot of blackface. A lot.

Book review - "Deliver Me From Nowhere" by Warren Zanes

 Read this specifically to see if there was a movie in it. There isn't. Sorry. Haven't seen the movie. But it's a chapter, not a whole story. As a book it's fine because it drills down into songs and so on. But no sweeping narrative. Well written and researched. Springsteen comes out of it well.

Movie review - "Take It Or Leave It" (1981) ***

 I'll give it to Madness - they had some hits then decided to blow it on their own film. The movie kind if disappeared, weird for a popular band - I don't think it had enough distribution. That's a common excuse but fans of the film will enjoy this as it tells their story from 1976 to 1979. The script is a series of vignettes all based on reality.

I'm not sure it's for people other than fans - it's hard to tell them apart. I recognised the songs towards the end - some bigger hits up front might've helped. 

Movie review - "Can't Stop the Music" (1980) **1/2

 Gosh. Big. Splashy. Warm hearted. Very community minded. Dumb. No conflict - n opposition. Too many characters. Great feel of friendship and camraderie. Too many old dames at the end. But the movie just wants to entertain.

Movie review - "The Jazz Singer" (1980) **

 I was in the mood for this. It's not very good but it's a big crap musical with Neil Diamond a warm presence with a wonderful voice who deserved a better film. Starts with a thumping song, shots of NYC and Diamond and Laurence Olivier being Jewish and you wonder what went wrong. Then Diamond's in blackface with some black musicians.

Franklin Ajaye and Luci Arnaz are perfect support. Script makes dumb decisions like not killing off Olivier (isn't that the point?). Apparently they were going to kill off Arnaz too that would've been ideal. And dumb to make him married that makes him an arsehole. Lean into the melodrama. 

Great songs. Diamond doesn't disgrace himself. Olivier has a high old time. Campy fun when Diamond goes on the road.

Movie should have been book ended by a huge concert. 

Movie review - "Purple Rain" (1984) ****

 Holds up well. Hero is violent to women as is his dad and neither are really punished but it's not endorsed. Amazing music. Sexy. Prince has charisma, Apollonia is gorgeous, the girls in the band are sensational, interesting look visually. Morris Day and the Time are great.

Movie review - "Rock n Roll" (1959) ***

 Long missing concert film was found in New Zealand, cleaned up and given a nice sheen. It's fun. No Fabian, who was cut out, but in a way that helps the nationalistic aspect - it builds up to the appearance of J O'K, who was inserted into the movie from a later concert. Johnny O'Keefe steals the show, as he should. He's got It. So too as Col Joye but not as much as JOK.

Only one singer plays to the camera. Other bands are more run of the mill like The Graduates. Johnny Devlin does a great Elvis impersonation.

Overlay scream sounds which contrast with the audience sitting down. Some great audience cutaways - girls screaming, kids just sitting there, some old codger nodding off.

The audience of boomers I saw it with talked excitedly through the film and sang along with some of the songs. Cute.

Movie review - "Nashville" (1975) ***

People adore this movie - Pauline Kael, Richard Curtis, among many, many others. When you talk about Robert Altman masterpieces it gets ranked with MASH, McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Long Goodbye, The Player and Gosford Park.

I've got to be honest - I don't like it. I don't hate it - I just feel overwhelming indifference. It goes for so long, isn't that funny or moving; I found The Player and MASH insightful, but not this movie. Geraldine Chaplin's reporter got on my nerves after a while, the political stuff was a drag (was it meant to be satirical? was it meant to have a point?), the strip club scene just made me feel awkward (which I guess was the point - still didn't like watching it). There's too many bits where you go "oh that's random" but it doesn't feel as though it has a point.

I enjoyed Henry Gibson's  pompous but basically decent country and western man, found Ronee Blakely touching and Keith Carradine was superb in what should have been a starmaking part as a womanising singer. Actually the whole cast were pretty good - there's some wonderful actors. Plenty of music, though not of a high quality, and the movie does have an engaging atmosphere. I just feel it's been incredibly over-rated.

Movie review – “The Runaways” (2010) **1/2

A film with style to spare – terrific production design, camera angles, “feel”, etc. Not a super duper amount of story: band forms, have success, squabble, break up. There is a twist when Kirsten Stewart and Dakota Fanning have sex – I can’t imagine Richards and Jagger doing that! Stewart plays Joan Jett in a gauche, awkward style, very reminiscent of Bella in Twilight; Fanning does her best but is simply too mature and sensible to catch fire in the role (I watched some You Tube footage of the girl she plays – the real life edition had much more life and fire). As a result, the film lacks something (apart from a fully fleshed story).

Book review – “Across the Universe”

Day by day account of the Beatles after the break up. It seems the Beatles spent most of their time being asked when they were going to get back together again. OK, yes, that’s an exaggeration – but it did come up ALL the time. They put out solo albums – Paul took a while to get going but hit his stride with Wings, John went his erratic way, George and even Ringo started off well but tapered off. Reading this it’s clear that John, for all his multitude of problems, was as smart as a whip – uber, uber brain. Whereas Paul was a bit dopey but far more well adjusted and with a better work ethic. The song-by-song descriptions are fascinating at first but eventually get a bit wearying (do we really care how Ringo came up with the idea for the fourth track on his third solo album?)

Movie review - "About a Man" (2007) ***1/2

Intriguing doco on Kurt Cobain done using his own voice over from taped interviews, put over various images of places and people like people he is talking about (but not the actual people), many of whom stare at the camera Baraka style. They don't use Nirvana music but play lots of influences on them. It took a while to adjust but once I did I really liked it. He was a mixed up dude, poor Kurt - no wonder he offed himself. It seems the only healthy thing he got much pleasure out of in life was his music and when that became a chore there was nothing.

Book review - "Rolling Stones Songs"

I think that's the correct title, I don't have the book in front of me, but its worth a look if you're a Stones fan, taking you through every song they made. Some drawbacks - for instance it doesn't really give the stories behind the recording of every song (this is far from a definitive work) and is a little thing on discussing the contributions of people other that Jagger and Richards; Mick Taylor's work is often discussed, but Bill Wyman hardly ever and Watts not nearly enough. Also it goes according to albums - which means that they don't get around to some singles which weren't on albums until the end. Considering this includes some of the Stones' main track, eg Jumping Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Woman - it makes a mess of the chronology.

Book review - "Moby - replay"

Biography of the performer which was published after the success of "Play", so it doesn't cover his recent albums. It is really excellent, though, with plenty of interviews with its subject matter and analysis of the music scene and how Moby fitted in and his tracks. Moby was turning out stuff a decade before Play - in fact, something I didn't realise, his first single was his biggest hit until Play, "Go", a sample from Twin Peaks which I must have danced to at Fridays back in the day. I first became really aware of his music when Michael Mann used some tracks in Heat and Moby has proved incredibly popular with soundtracks - not just movies, but TV and ads. His flogging of his music for commercial use has earned him a lot of flak in the music community but from reading this it seems that Moby is often getting flak form the community and he has learned to live with it - maybe he even thrives on it (many artists do). The book isn't totally pro-Moby: it points out he often changes his mind when it comes to those silly statements about the world, universe and everything he makes, he can be a hypocrite and a bit of a lecherous wanker (hey, what famous person isn't?). But immensely talented. My favourite story: clean living Moby went on tour with party boys the Prodigy and they had to share the bus and Moby came along and asked them to keep the noise down.

Book review - "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Robert Sellars

HandMade films were one of the few bright spots in the British film industry in the early 80s. Formed by George Harrison and his accountant Dennis O'Brien to help bail out Monty Python on The Meaning of Life, they then funded Time Bandits - both films were big hits and HandMade suddenly found themselves in the movie business. Over the next ten years they made a handful of films that really stand the test of time, including A Private Function and Withnail and I. Eventually, as these companies always do, they went bust and it all ended acrimoniously when Harrison found that O'Brien had been ripping him off.

This book is mostly a collection of interviews with people crucial to HandMade, except O'Brien and Harrison. Harrison was dead and O'Brien not around - so he really cops it. I mean really cops it. The fact is the company wouldn't have existed and the films wouldn't have been made if it hadn't been for him - he had a real gift for raising finance (mostly on the strength of Harrison's personal guarantee), and also had a bright taste in comedy.

HandMade fluked into two massive hits to start up with (they also picked up The Long Good Friday, a solid success) but soon established a niche - British comedy. Since hardly anyone was making British features at the time, they could have kept their budgets low and enjoyed a longer life churning out these, living off the occasional break-through hit. But they got ambitious, and made Shanghai Surprise then moved to America. Actually even when they moved to America they didn't go Hollywood but still made artier stuff - but they went against their niche and ran into a series of flops which killed the company.

This is a very entertaining book on a very worthwhile subject. It probably needed some more hard data than being mostly interviews - many creative people like to whinge about executives - with the quality of access is high. Oh, one more thing - everyone bags Water but I loved Water, I think it really works.

Movie review - "Ray" (2004) ***

I grew up knowing Ray Charles mostly as that cuddly very talented blind black man who would made cameos in movies and on tv - no one was more beloved - so it came as a bit of a shock to see this bio which highlights a long heroin addiction and constant infidelity. It doesn't deify him, but you do have sympathy because of the blind thing and because Jaime Foxx is so good in the lead role. Also good is the period detail and the acting. It is well done.

Book review - "Bee Gees: tales of the brothers Gibb"

Exhaustive bio on the famous pop band, written by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook, Andrew Môn Hughes, with Joseph Brennan and Mark Crohan. Covers the early years in England and the Isle of Man, the move to Australia, working in Brisbane and Sydney (where they became professional performers, though never really had a hit record until "Spicks and Specks" just before they left to go to England), moving to England and signing with Robert Stigwood and earning almost instant fame (pay off for all the hard work), the band breaks up they get back together, then a major slump, then disco and Saturday Night Fever and being a mega band, then a backlash in the early 80s but at the same time mass success writing songs for others (eg "Heartbreaker", "Guilty", "Islands in the Stream") then a revival in the late 80s, and then establishment band. A full on journey and this book tries to pack it all in - too much so, at times - it feels as though it would have been better as a reference book than a bio, with all the chatting about what songs have been released where and special German editions of albums. Engrossing.

The boys themselves seem quite normal - well, Maurice was an alcho for 25 years (the book I read only goes up to 2001 so doesn't cover his death), and Robin's wife seems to be bisexual, but no major eccentricities, just a lot of hard work: presumably because they put in such major hard yards in Australia. Compare with their poor brother Andy, better looking than any of them and just as talented, who became famous really quickly and got hooked on everything, rooting up his heart so he went to an early death.

The Bee Gees are sometimes claimed as Australian but really are more English, though the Australian experience seems to have really made them - indeed, Barry suggested Andy go to Australia to start his career as it would be a great place to learn, and Andy did just that (he even got married to an Aussie girl, who he later dumped). But there were many Aussie connections for the group: in the late 60s the Bee Gees were actually a five piece, with the brothers plus a drummer Colin Petersen (who was in the film Smiley) and a guitarist, both Aussies; Stigwood was of course an Aussie and they were involved in promoting Aussie acts like Ronnie Burns.

A very interesting read - but should have been an encyclopedia.