Leslie Ann Coles' enchanting 2016 music documentary, MELODY MAKERS, finally arrives

Forget Rolling Stone. The music magazine you need to know all about -- and will find out plenty via this new film -- is the no-longer-published British weekly, Melody Maker, which ruled the music roost for most of its 75-year run, ceding its deserved dominance to rivals only when its owners insisted on major coverage going to popular boy bands and that ilk, rather than to the folk who actually made the music worth keeping.

As written and directed by Leslie Ann Coles (shown at left) and expertly edited by Mark Sanders, the film spends just the right amount of time with the many talking heads rounded up to speak about this marvelous magazine and its storied (even if many times accidental) scoops and articles that could and usually did goose the careers of the musical artists involved -- sometimes into overdrive.

We hear from former editors and journalists/ critics and especially from one particular photographer, Barrie Wentzell, whose resonant work (shown below) is also redolent and utterly defining of a time long gone -- and much missed by many of us.

The thing -- other than the subject itself -- that makes this documentary so special is how very speedy is the dialog, together with the ideas tossed around here. Similar to the fast pace of another recent doc, Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché, the movie assumes its audience to be intelligent and quick-thinking and so neither drags along nor grows repetitive (à la Ken Burns), as it drops its many bons mots and makes us think, assess and often laugh along the way.

What all these interviewees have to say, and what we learn about the bands, individual musicians, music politics and just-plain gossip of the day should delight and surprise anyone who lived through and paid attention to the music scene of this day (particularly the 1950s, 60s and 70s).

For instance: As there were few to no teachers of guitar in Britain at the time, rock musicians had to learn the instrument, along with what it could be made to do, all by themselves. Once something new was achieved, it was often shared, as the musicians moved on to yet another new chord or challenge. (You'll also discover what the Mafia had to do with why a magazine as popular as Melody Maker never saw U.S. distribution.)

As all this occurred well before the internet appeared, the relationship between the magazine and the musicians it covered was more than a little "chummy," which had both positive and negative effects. While it's hard not to recall this time as a kind of golden age, the tone of the doc is never self-congratulatory. These folk look back on things with an eye both distanced and melancholic. Still, when at the end of the movie, the workers tell us that these were the best jobs they ever had, you'll be hard put to disagree. Once you've seen this film, you'll understand why, had you been young in Great Britain back in the day, Melody Maker would have been your must-read.

From Cleopatra Entertainment and running just 78 minutes, Melody Makers opens in Los Angeles today, Friday, November 29, for a week-long run at the Arena CineLounge Sunset, 6464 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood CA, followed by the Apple iBook debut on the same day -- with a DVD Release scheduled for December 17. 

Owen Harris' KILL YOUR FRIENDS visits the blotto music industry (circa the 1990s)

What The Player did for Hollywood and Exit Through the Gift Shop did for the art world, a new movie called KILL YOUR FRIENDS attempts to do for the music industry -- unfortunately in a mostly been-there/done-that manner. Part of the problem is that the movie must be necessarily set in the past, as there no longer exists a music industry anything like the one pictured here. (Music post-Napster is something else entirely.) With a screenplay by John Niven (who also co-wrote one of the most enjoyable underseen films of modern times, Cat Run), based upon his own novel, and directed by Owen Harris (below), the film features one of those would-be memorable anti-heroes who murders his way to the top.

As played well, if a tad too heavy-handedly, by the increasingly gorgeous Nicholas Hoult (from About a Boy, Jack the Giant Slayer, Warm Bodies and the latest Mad Max overkill, and who is shown below and further below), our main character, Steven, is a talentless, lazy, entitled no-account, whose main abilities seems to be looking good and murdering his peers. Now, we don't have to like the guy, but we ought to at least be interested in how he works his way up the ladder. Slack pacing and wobbly, paint-by-numbers plotting make this difficult, despite a very good supporting cast.

This would include an under-used Joseph Mawle (below, left), a smart and grossly used James Corden, and helpful stand-bys like Tom Riley (in the penultimate photo, below), Craig Roberts (below, right), Jim Piddock (two photos below) and Georgia King (the blond at left, shown three photos below).

If murder, blackmail and accessing your boss' computer were as easy it it all seems here, what a field day villains could have.  However, if you're willing to suspend (and then stomp on) your disbelief, you might have a better time than did I.

Edward Hogg (of another underseen gem, Bunny and the Bull) makes several appearances as a would-be song-writing policeman whose misplaced ambitions play into Steven's unbelievable rise.

Two small supporting performances may grab you unexpectedly: Moritz Bleibtreu, as a German music biz idiot named Rudi, and Rosanna Arquette, as an outspoken feminist at a luncheon Steven attends. Both are better than the material that surrounds them.

Finally not funny enough to be called a comedy, or sharp enough for real satire, Kill Your Friends exists as a glossy, semi-entertaining account of a know-nothing's rise and--were the film to enter the ensuing decade--fall.

From Well Go Entertainment, the movie opens today in New York City at the AMC Empire 25, in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema, and all across the country at various cities. Click here to see all 15 currently scheduled playdates. Simultaneously with today's limited theatrical release, the film will hit Digital HD via, I am guessing, the usual venues.

Blu-ray/DVDebut -- John Carney's music-themed BEGIN AGAIN: Lightning can indeed strike twice!

When Once hit theaters and then home video back in 2007, it seemed a revelation: a low-keyed movie about music and a relationship that never pushed or manipulated but blossomed then grew into a stunning tale that climaxes with as moving and perfect a finale in all movie history. Yes, I know: that's quite a statement, but WTF, it's true! The film's writer/director, John Carney, made a couple of small films since then that never saw release over here. But now comes BEGIN AGAIN, a much bigger-budget movie that hit theaters this past summer via The Weinstein Company and comes to Blu-ray and DVD this week (with an early digital download window that began last week). And what do you know? Lightning has most definitely struck again.

Mr. Carney, shown at left, is not simply conversant with the music business. He seems to understand well how it works, how new music is produced, and the difference between mega-produced mainstream-attracting music and the kind that appeals to a niche crowd. He also, I suspect, know that there is sometimes a way in which to enlarge that niche to the point that it almost looks a little mainstream. For the purposes of movie-making, he also understands how to create characters we like and root for and make them seem real throughout, whatever else happens along the way.

If Begin Again is a bit brighter, happier and star-filled than Once, it is also every bit as interesting, delightful and enchanting. Though sometimes threatening to go off into la-la-land feel-goodness, it keeps its footing and by the end more than earns our good feelings. The movie pairs a seemingly washed-up and alcoholic music producer (the wonderful Mark Ruffalo, below) and a novice singer/songwriter (Keira Knightley, above, at her loveliest and most persuasive, with a good singing voice, too) and lets them slowly find their way toward what they both want and need.

These two actors, along with the characters they play, hold the movie together beautifully. We care about them and their problems, and Carney has the sense and talent to guide his characters through water just deep enough to douse but not drown them. And Knightley and Ruffalo parse every situation and then perform the necessary moments with grace and intelligence. They keep us tightly with them all the way.

Music-wise, Carney has his duo come up with some wonderfully creative ideas that are not necessarily bound to work. But in our current climate of anything-goes-but-most-of-it-won't, these ideas and the way in which they are given life, are simply good enough (sometime a lot more than that) to make it all seem possible. In supporting roles, Mos Def/Yaslin Bey (above, left) as Ruffalo's business partner and Cee Lo Green (below), left) as a popular musician whose career Ruffalo has helped create, provide good negative/positive ballast to various situations.

Adam Levine (below, right) makes his movie debut here, and he's not bad at all as Knightley's shallow boyfriend on  the cusp of becoming a huge music star.

Ditto James Corden (below, right), who is even better as our babe's best friend by way of Blighty.

In the family area, both Catherine Keener and Haley Steinfeld (below, left) shine as, respectively, Ruffalo's ex-wife and daughter. One of the nice surprises Carney has in store along the way involves the marital history of this particular husband and wife

It's hard to explain just how slowly and well the filmmaker and his cast manage to capture our hearts and minds. But they do, they do. And then there's that music -- which I expect you'll want to hear again, as soon as possible after you've finished watching the movie.

I do have two caveats. One has to do with the scene in which Ruffalo hears Knightley play solo guitar and sing but imagines an entire orchestra joining in. We don't need the goofy look of instruments magically starting up like something out of Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Just the aural sounds would have been enough. Ditto the end credits, during which stupidly feel-good, tie-up-all-the-loose-ends visuals appear to make sure we know everything ends perfectly. (Seems to me that this last one has all the markings of Harvey Weinstein's interference.)

The strong and joyous expression on Ms Knightley's face at the finale is all any intelligent audience needs to feel fine and take away from this wonderful movie. But someone was intent on reaching the dumb audience, too, I guess, thus trying to turn a smart and larger-than-usual niche movie into a possible mainstream bull-dozer. Dumb, indeed.

Begin Again -- via Anchor Bay Entertainment and running 104 minutes.-- makes its Blu-ray/DVDebut tomorrow, October 28. If you missed it in theaters, don't let it get by you now.

Oh, boy-- a 1980s musical delight! Festival favorite Ian Thorpe's ETERNITY: THE MOVIE

Who knew mediocrity could be so much fun? Well, Ian Thorpe (shown below, who is the director and co-writer, along with Joey Abi-Loutfi and Eric Staley) sure did. Together with a very nimble cast, they have found a way to make this mediocrity so sweet and silly and special that I swear, they've accomplished something that almost no one else has: finding exactly the right kind of dead-pan humor to make what should be a bad movie quite wonderful. ETERNITY: THE MOVIE works just about perfectly, in fact -- once you tune into its wave length, that is.

Maybe you have to be gay (and out) to go with this particular vibe. I noticed just a few moments ago as I was reading the The NY Times review that its critic clearly did not tune in. You may be luckier. Do try, because the rewards are great. This story of a meet-cute twosome (who resemble something awfully close to the Hall & Oates that some of us loved so well) decide to become a hit duo, and by gum, they sure do -- oh! Deadpan is often portrayed as affectless; here it's anything but. There is so much enthusiasm on display that you can't decide if it's infectious or just plain loony. Either way, though, it's a lot of fun.

The two leads could not be better, both at resembling Hall & Oates and at revving up for a real 1980s bash of music, fashion, very large mobile phones, bad moods and love. Part of the delight and charm here is that every other character in this movie is convinced that our adorable duo is gay. But this possibility seems never to have occurred to the boys themselves.

As played by Myko Olivier (above, right) and Barrett Crake (above, left), the twosome proves adorable and talented enough to have a few hits, as well as involve themselves in an eventualy three-way, would-be love affair with their neighbor, Gina-Marie (a smart and funny Nikki Leonti, shown at bottom, right).

Also on hand for support are old-timers Eric Roberts (below) and Jon Gries (above, left). But it's our ever-hopeful, starry-eyed duo who rule. How everyone here found the right degree of "almost reality," sweetness and skill to turn what, by all rights, ought to have been a big nothing into a quite something may remain one of those marvelous movie mysteries that occur but rarely.

So just be grateful and go bask in the cleverly conceived 1980s, where, if you can manage to grab on to that unusual wave-length, a very good time awaits.

Eternity: The Movie , running 91 minutes, opens today in New York City at the AMC Empire 25, next Friday, October 24 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3, and thereafter at another half-dozen cities around the country. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates. 

Back up (or move on)! Morgan Neville's 20 FEET FROM STARDOM shows the life of backup singers

If you were lucky enough to catch the little-seen documen-tary titled THIS TIME, either on DVD (it made its debut in 2011) or the following year when it had a very limited theatrical re-lease, you're already one-up on this year's popular docu-mentary 20 FEET FROM STARDOM, which arrives on DVD and Blu-ray this coming week. While the former film de-tails the lives & near-careers of a group of hopefuls trying to reach the pinnacle of their respective music professions (rock, gospel, cabaret, and variations) or in some cases make a comeback from their earlier success/subsequent disappearance, 20 Feet... deals with mostly the career/plight of some back-up singers who've worked with the very best (The Rolling Stones, Elvis, etc) and who in some cases are hoping to light out on their own, though in another -- the whop-pingly talented Darlene Love -- are just trying for a kind of comeback.

Directed by Morgan Neville, shown at right, the movie is full of music and rhythm, heartache and semi-triumph, as it recounts the past and present and allows us a glimpse of the maybe future of some of these amazing singers. Ms Love's career, in particular, is given a large swath of time and exposure -- from her misuse by the crazy and talented Phil Spector to her near-rise, obscurity (cleaning houses in Los Angeles!) and resurgence. One of the ultimate cabaret experiences of TrustMovies' life came some years back when he saw a show (at the now defunct Fein-stein's at the Regency) of Ms Love paired with Freda Payne (yes, love & pain!). Both women were terrific, but Love was off-the-charts amazing. That voice, the energy, the absolute focus and freedom of voice, feeling, movement this woman possesses!

Neville's movie -- via interviews with stars, from Springsteen to Jagger to Midler and back, as well as work-a-day musicians and these young (or not so) women themselves -- shows us both how talented these performers are and how difficult it is to go from being a terrific backup singer to breaking out into one's own sphere of stardom.

As the movie moves along, you become aware that one young woman -- Judith Hill, below -- is going to keep attempting this, while another -- the equally,

perhaps even more talented  Lisa Fischer, shown above, may just stay put, in back of the "stars." And yet it is also clear that this position -- the titular 20 feet from stardom -- ain't so bad in many regards. The singers are hugely prized by some of the stars (Jagger is effusive in his praise) and audiences knows and love them, too.

The movie also lets us hear from performers like the great Claudia Lennear (below) and Merry Clayton, along with Táta Vega and The Waters family -- all of whom have had fine careers. Even if some of them didn't, perhaps, maximize their potential, all of them have a lot to show for their time in (or at least near) the sun.

It's Ms Love, however (shown below), who seems to hold things together here, whether she's reminiscing or belting out her signature Christmas number. As the credits roll, you'll probably stay in your seat, tapping your toe to the rhythm and maybe even singing along. If the movie doesn't quite jell in the way that This Time manages, or probe as deeply as it might (it's mostly a feel-good fest), it succeeds in giving us a good, musical time.

20 Feet from Stardom -- running 91 minutes, from RADiUS/TWC, and appearing on DVD and Blue-ray via Anchor Bay Entertainment, hits the streets this Tuesday, January 14.

Jared Leto's ARTIFACT--about the tribulations of 30 Seconds to Mars--on VOD/digital via FilmBuff

A most interesting, if unintentional, follow-up to another good documentary about the music industry, Downloaded, the new doc titled ARTIFACT -- from Jared Leto (working under his directorial pseudonym of Bartholomew Cubbins) and about the band 30 Second to Mars, begun by Leto and his brother Shannon, together with their recruit Tomo Milicevic -- continues the necessary examination of the decline of the western world's foul music industry and why this seems both a sad and salutary ongoing event.

Mr. Cubbins (what an interesting pseudonym; it sounds like someone's Teddy Bear) aka Leto (shown at left) and his crew have put together an alternately poignant, angry, funny, depressing and hopeful video diary about the year or two during which their band was feuding big-time with their record label EMI (soon to be bought by a company called Terra Firma, and eventually becoming part of -- yikes! -- the world's leakiest umbrella corp, Citigroup), which then turned around and sued the band for millions of dollars, after which the band decided to record its own album and bid fuck you to its label.

But of course, this being the music business, nothing was quite as easy or intelligible or even vaguely straight ahead as either of the two parties might have wanted. Instead we get double- and triple-talk, along with people who don't seem all that sure of what they actually need or want, while at the same time music and song are being created -- not too much of which we hear, since this is going to be the band's new album, after all, and nobody wants to give anything away for free.

Giving music away for free -- however unintentionally -- as we learned from Downloaded, helped usher in the abrupt semi-demise of the music industry. The Leto bros (above, with Jared at right and Shannon center) and Milicevic (above, left) are too smart for that, but they do seem to dawdle a bit in coming to terms with what they actually want to do. The documentary dawdles a bit, too, becoming repetitive and meandering. At 105 minutes it could have been cut down some -- though heavy-duty fans of Leto and his group will probably not mind the extra minutes.

Along the way we get some history of the Leto family, with appropriate archival footage. And though Jared has his own acting career (which, to my mind, eclipses anything he's done musically), the movie concentrates solely on his and his band-mates' work on the new album.

From the outset it is clear that the record company has the wherewithal to carry on the fight indefinitely, so this "pissing contest," as someone calls it, between band and label does not bode well for the little guys. Still, there is always the possibility of leaving the label and going DIY. Yet that pesky and expensive lawsuit just keeps on, with EMI stalling and changing its mind at every pass and impass.

One of the most interesting sections of the film is the series of charts that shows what a typical "hit" album actually pays out to the label and to its musicians: How the label uses all kinds of shoddy tactics to increase its take and leave the musicians actually owing money. This is exemplary stuff. By the time we hear about the new "360 deal" and what this means to musicians, I should think that few viewers who began the film with an idea of someday signing a record deal will still have those particular stars in their eyes.

Eventually Guy Hands, the man behind Terra Firma is shown up to be all thumbs, and when, at the film's conclusion, Leto asks the audience at a concert how many of them possess the new This is War album, almost all the hands go up. When he then asks how many of those present stole the album off the internet, well, the next show of hands speaks volumes. You might think of Artifact as but the latest bulletin in the continuing war between art and commerce.

The documentary, from the fine and knowledgeable movie-curating hand of FilmBuff, will make its debut across all leading VOD platforms on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013. The film can also be pre-ordered now via iTunes.