Posts Tagged ‘film’

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Watch local: Do It Again

April 19, 2010

Guest blogger Scott writes:

In an earlier post about Kickstarter, I gave the example of how the producers of a documentary about The Kinks were funding its editing through small donations. That movie, Do It Again, premiered in March at the Cleveland International Film Festival to positive reviews, and will be showing in Somerville at the Independent Film Festival Boston on Saturday, April 24th. I haven’t seen it yet, but it looks to be less of a music documentary and more of a Nick Hornby/Studs Terkel mash-up, in that it isn’t so much about The Kinks as it is about how people (creator/star Geoff Edgers in particular, but also the people he enlists in his quest) think, or even obsess, about the band. And while the Hornbyish narrative story of a quest to reunite The Kinks is intimately tied a single band, it can be seen as a lens for thinking about the Terkel-ish question of why people love the bands they love and how that love shapes them. In that sense, it seems like a good pairing for The Heart is a Drum Machine — One asks “What is music?”; the other asks “What does music mean?”.

Previously on z=z: Watch: Music docs at IFF Boston, Apr 23-25

Image: Photo of Ray Davies from the Wikimedia Commons, used here under its Creative Commons license.

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Watch: Music docs at IFF Boston, Apr 23-25

April 19, 2010

Boston indie music and movie lovers, rejoice! There is a hat trick of music-related documentaries next weekend as part of Independent Film Festival Boston. All three screenings are at the Somerville Theatre at 7:30 pm. The italicized excerpts are from the IFF Boston site, and you can get more info and buy tickets there.

Searching for Elliott Smith:

Friday Monday, April 23rd 26th, 7:30 pm, Somerville Theatre

An icon defined by his music’s emotional accessibility and the detached enigma of his public persona, Smith is as quietly compelling in the accounts of his friends and fans as his life and lyrics were….Balancing his darkest depressions and greatest achievements, SEARCHING FOR ELLIOTT SMITH reveals its subject’s kindness, subtle humor, and reserved brilliance, as well as the perfect imperfections of his prolific output—and it testifies to the overwhelming effect his visceral truths had on his closest friends and anonymous admirers alike. [D. Barnum-Swett]

Do It Again

Saturday, April 24th, 8:00 pm, Somerville Theatre

Every real music fan has a favorite band—but it’s a very rare fan who single-handedly attempts to reunite them years after they’ve packed it in. In director Robert Patton Spruill’s DO IT AGAIN, that rare fan is Geoff Edgers, a Boston Globe staff writer and dedicated follower of the Kinks. Edgers was driven to embark on a risky and time-consuming quest to get the Davies brothers and their old bandmates back in the same room to play some songs…. [B. Searles]

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

Sunday, April 25th, 7:30 pm, Brattle Theatre

…Directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara provide us with comfortable, homey access to Merritt and the most important, grounding influence in his life: his decades-long friendship with his chipper musical collaborator Claudia Gonson. On his home turf, in the apartment that has doubled as the studio for the lion’s share of his recordings, Merritt is anything but prickly or uncooperative. He is a reflective, passionate, and even playful artist who is producing many of the great songs of his generation. [SL Frey/K Aikens]

EDIT: Factcheck fail. Dates, times, and venues have been corrected. Thanks to Brad for the heads-up!

MP3: Elliott Smith – Waterloo Sunset (Kinks cover) [via Rawkblog]


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Tonight: Head Like a Kite at the Croc

April 10, 2009

hlak1

Okay, this sounds pretty fun. Local faves Head Like a Kite are at the Crocodile tonight, and they’ll also be debuting a feature film, described as following “the steamy affair of two impassioned Barbie dolls hell bent on adventure. Sex, fire, Superman, Barbie dolls, and a car chase.” What’s not to like? Especially when it’s projected behind HLaK’s beats.

Wild Orchid Children and Partman Parthorse open, and doors are at 8 pm.

MP3: Head Like a Kite – No Ordinary Caveman [buy]

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Watch: Speaking in Code

April 1, 2009

After four years in production, Speaking in Code, a vérité-style documentary about the world of techno, is set to hit the big screen. The film features techno artists such as Modeselektor, Monolake, Wolfgang Voigt (a co-founder of the influential Kompakt label) as well as local faces Smartypants (Mike Uzzi) and Six Million Dollar Dan (Dan Paluska). It’s set to premiere at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday, April 23rd, as part of Independent Film Festival Boston. You can buy a festival pass now, and individual tickets will be on sale shortly.

MP3: Modeselektor – Dancing Box (Sleeparchive remix) [beatport]

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Watch: “One Week”

March 12, 2009

Michael McGowan’s film, “One Week” opened last Friday. It’s a road-trip movie about twenty-something Ben Tyler (played by Joshua Jacobs) who, upon learning that he has aggressive and probably-terminal cancer, buys a motorcycle and rides from his home in Toronto to Vancouver. Canadian independent movies have a reputation for being painfully earnest, and this one looks like it’ll fit that stereotype. But, as you can see from the trailer (above), it’s also a love song to Canada – gorgeous shots of the landscape are interspersed throughout—and to Canadian independent music. The movie features songs by bands like Stars, Great Lake Swimmers, and Wintersleep. You can read more about the music in the movie here.

It’s only been released in Canada (unsurprisingly), but you can already add it to your Netflix queue. Or, of course, you can go on a north-of-the-border road trip  of your own.

MP3: Wintersleep – Weighty Ghost [buy]

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Upcoming: Documentary, It Might Get Loud

September 11, 2008

Davis Guggenheim, the director and one of the producers of The Inconvenient Truth, just screened his new documentary, It Might Get Loud, at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Rather than focusing on an artist, this is a music documentary that focuses on an instrument, the electric guitar. A trio of musicians tell their stories: guitar legends Jimmy Page and The Edge get to step out of the shadow of their larger-than-life frontmen and take centre stage, together with Jack White (who is also the larger-than-life frontman, of course, and he’s still a legend-in-progress at this point). All three talk about coming to the instrument, as well as about the art and craft of songwriting and playing. I imagine that this film was, or soon will be, picked up for distribution – I certainly plan on keeping an eye out for it to make it to a theatre (or at least a Netflix queue) near me.

More info: website TIFF ’08 listing Twitch review

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Watch: Altamont Now

March 21, 2008

This looks awesome. Altamont Now is having its world premiere tomorrow, March 22nd, at the Boston Underground Film Festival. From the director: ‘it’s the story of a mysteriously square journalist who happens upon a cult of rock and roll revolutionaries living inside an abandoned nuclear missile silo with little idea of what they are “revolutionizing” against.’ Shot inside an actual underground silo, it’s an absurdist, satirical look at how youth rebellion borrows from its past.

Saturday, March 22nd, 5 pm at the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge [details]

If you can’t make it tomorrow, you can keep an eye out for future showings: website myspace

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