Film Review
Sunday Best: A Netflix Documentary
by Thomas Cole
Ed Sullivan, at one time was the most renowned name in US television. Most of us hear that name and think of Elvis Presley and his electrifying game-changing performance in 1956. Few of us will ever forget the hip-shaking gyrations that captivated a nation. Nothing like it had ever been seen on national television. Or so the myth goes, as Elvis premiered on the Milton Berle Show a few months earlier. Or we think of and remember his introduction of ...
Continue ReadingThe Session Man: Nicky Hopkins
by Doug Collette
Nicky Hopkins The Session Man Alan Fergurson2025 The very title of Mike Treen's film The Session Man: Nicky Hopkins understates the singular stature of the documentary's subject. Nicky Hopkins was a British keyboardist/composer who played on over two-hundred vintage era recordings by genuinely iconic musical figures of contemporary rock like the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Who. In fact, Hopkins' prestige is such that the name of the documentary ends up sounding more ...
Continue ReadingMarley: Collector's Edition (2DVD)
by Doug Collette
Bob Marley Marley: 2 DVD Collector's Edition Tuff Gong Worldwide 2025 There have been other works devoted to Bob Marley ostensibly as comprehensive as Academy Award-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald's picturesque historical film Marley. But the addition of this absorbing piece to a list including, but hardly limited to, Timothy White's print biography Catch A Fire (Elm Tree Books, 1983) and the 2024 biopic Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount Pictures, 2024), only clarifies the depth and ...
Continue ReadingBob Dylan: A Complete Unknown
by Doug Collette
Bob Dylan A Complete Unknown Searchlight Pictures2024 As with so many artistic efforts related to Bob Dylan, James Mangold's biopic A Complete Unknown may work best simply as the means to an end (and not just as inspiration to revisit the Nobel Prize winner's music). The film certainly benefits from not being taken too seriously, especially as it hardly pretends to be definitive, even in the designated 1961-1965 timeline of the screenplay by the ...
Continue ReadingMedeski Martin & Wood: Not Not Jazz
by Doug Collette
Medeski Martin & Wood Not Not Jazz MVD Entertainment Group 2024 Director Jason Miller and producers Tyler Davidson, Jim Stark and Elie Weiss do not succumb to over-ambition with Not Not Jazz, their documentary devoted to Medeski Martin & Wood. The temptation would be to try and 'explain' the chemistry of the “avant-groove" band, but that would be an exercise in futility if there ever was one. And why try to eradicate the mystery of ...
Continue ReadingRory Gallagher: Calling Card
by Ian Patterson
Rory Gallagher Rory Gallagher: Calling Card Dearg Films/Strange Music LimitedDirector: Brian Reddin 2024 If street signs named after an artist are any indication of their cultural status then there is no doubting the importance of Rory Gallagher. Streets in at least three cities, including Paris, and a Dublin square, all bear the name of the Irish blues-rock guitarist who died aged 47 in 1995. The Ballyshannon-born, Cork-raised guitarist's enduring appeal can ...
Continue ReadingThey Shot the Piano Player
by Mark Sullivan
They Shot the Piano Player Sony Pictures Classics Director: Fernando Trueba Run Time: 103 minutes 2023 They Shot the Piano Player is an animated docudrama that explores the real-world 1976 disappearance of Brazilian pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior. Tenório was a gifted young pianist (34 years old at the time of his disappearance) who was on tour with Toquinho and Vinícius de Moraes in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when he went out on a ...
Continue ReadingLittle Feat: High Wire Act - Live in St. Louis 2003 (2CD/Blu-ray)
by Doug Collette
Little Feat High Wire Act -Live in St. Louis 2003 Mercury Studios2023 Little Feat's current personnel lineup has stabilized dramatically in recent years, so it's somewhat of a disappointment High Wire Act: Live in St. Louis 2003 does not depict those positive changes. Nevertheless, the 2CD/Blu-ray package does present an accurate portrait of the beloved band in its valiant (and largely successful) attempts to honor the legacy of the group in the wake of ...
Continue ReadingMaestro: The Leonard Bernstein Story
by Victor L. Schermer
Bradley Cooper Maestro Netflix 2023 This film is what might be called a romantic biopic about “maestro" (and household word) Leonard Bernstein's life and work and his loving but troubled relationship with his wife, the Costa Rican/ Chilean pianist and actor Felicia Montealegre. Yet it has the power and fast-moving energy of a war film like Battleship Potemkin (Mosfilm, 1925 ) or Saving Private Ryan (Paramount, 1998). That's because Bernstein led a warrior-like ...
Continue ReadingSalvation through rhythm: Max Roach—The Drum Also Waltzes
by Peter Jones
Max Roach--The Drum Also Waltzes Directed by Sam Pollard and Ben Shapiro PBS American Masters2023 Anyone who enjoyed the recent Wayne Shorter documentary Zero Gravity might also dig this--a more conventionally structured but equally fascinating look at the life of Max Roach. Filmmaker and interviewer Sam Pollard began making it in October 1987, then--for reasons which are not explained--left it alone for years before resuming again at some point after Roach's death in 2007.
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