FILMS OF NOTES
Music and movies go hand-in-hand in this month’s collection
With Hong Kong’s biggest music festival – Clockenflap – taking place from 22 to 24 November, there’s no better time to celebrate musical minds. Our collection of music-themed films does just that, with a range of gritty dramas, lighthearted comedies and big-budget spectacles onboard.
If you’re in the mood for a lighthearted comedy, look no further than Richard Linklater’s School of Rock – which sees struggling musician Dewey Finn (Jack Black) turn a group of primary school students into a rock group to rival his old band. In Yesterday, king of the rom-com Richard Curtis envisaged a world without The Beatles, and how one struggling songwriter looks to rectify – or take advantage – of it. And then there is the latest slew of Disney live-action reboots, the likes of which include Aladdin and The Lion King.
In Ron Howard’s latest music documentary, the director set his sights on Italian tenor Pavarotti (learn more in this month’s Critics’ Choice column, p87), while award-winning documentary Amy
(about Amy Winehouse) draws on archive film footage to portray the rise and fall of the neo-soul singer. And in David Crosby: Remember My Name, Cameron Crowe takes an unflinchingly honest look into the life and music of the living legend and double Hall of Fame inductee.
Crowe’s 2000 cult classic, Almost Famous, tells the semi-autobiographical tale of his work as a teenage journalist on the road for Rolling Stone magazine. Another loosely based memoir – the Coen Brothers’ melancholic, atmospheric
Inside Llewyn Davis, based on the life of Dave Van Ronk – looks at the life of a struggling folk singer in 1960s New York.
Big-budget biopics Rocketman and
Bohemian Rhapsody depict the lives of legendary performers in all their glitz, glamour and grubbiness, while a selection of dramas explores the darker sides of the world of music, from a Glaswegian ex- con with high hopes of a country music career in Wild Rose, to the relationship between an aspiring jazz drummer and his abusive instructor in Whiplash.
Whether you’re in the mood for a fullblown musical or an understated indie flick, you’re bound to find something that strikes a chord.