Musician Movies

I just saw Mighty Wind and I was wondering what are some of your favorite movies about musicians. Spinal Tap Bound for Glory and Velvet Goldmine spring immediately to mind.

"Still Crazy" is one of the funniest movies ever...

Almost famous, definitely!

Also, That Thing You Do!

Kickass move. :)

Heh...thanks for the earworm.

oO You...doin' that thing you do....breakin' my heart into a million pieces, like you always do... Oo

Yea Mike Viola! (Boy he got the shaft.)

Mike Viola?

He sang "That Thing You Do".  But very little mention was made that he did.  The song was a minor hit, but it was always credited to The Wonders and not him.  He was a bit miffed about that.

Well, it was written by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, but he hardly ever gets credit for it either.

That's the Oneders, thankyouverymuch.

:)

The Oh-knee-ders? ;)

"It's 'Oh-neh-ders.'"

TTYD is definitely the best IMO... "I am SOOO HAPPY!"  "I...am.... Spar-ta-cus."

Hard Day's Night, Help!, That Thing You Do! (Nate beat me to it), The Commitments (or however you spell it), Eddie & the Cruisers II (Heeeee...just for the Dave-O factor), Josie and the Pussycats (shut up!)...

My real weakness is dance movies though. :)

I loved the original Eddie and the Cruisers.

I meant to mention Amadeus.

A musician at least includes anyone who makes music professionally.

I couldn't decide if The Doors was worth a mention. I liked it when I saw it but it has faded with time.

The Commitments is an awesome musician movie...I also liked (as others have previously mentioned), Almost Famous, That Thing You Do, Amadeus, and Dirty Dancing (oops, that's about dancers, but it did feature some of those cheesy love songs that makes me nostalgic for the late 80s. :)

A Hard Day's Night (among other Beatles films), Head (Monkees!), Spinal Tap, and That Thing You Do!

Almost Famous, Spinal Tap, A Hard Day's Night and Head.

Shoot me for not including hte Beatles movies. So add Help and Yellow Submarine too.

Yea Hard Days Night!

* Strums opening Hard Days Night chord *

oh and I'm a tool for not mentioning HEAD... that is cool... was just listening to the soundtrack last night... want to be young Peter Tork's ice cream cone, hahaha!

word.

My list?

A Hard Day's Night (all beatles films really, but especially AHDN)

Head

Spice World

The Commitments

The Rutles (do made for tv parodies count?)

 

 

oh! and hedwig and all you need is cash. word.

oO I feel good, I feel bad, I feel happy, I feel sad, I might have known, ahhhhhh, I must be in love... Oo

*is earwormed*

.oO Goose-step mama.. Oo.

Ditto on those last three. Almost Famous is OK, but for me, not worth the repeated viewings I would give the other flicks, Jason Lee notwithstanding.

How about The Wall? A masterpiece by Pink Floyd, in my opinion.

Not to mention the most f**ked up music movie since Head.

I loved the wall but I wouldn't say it was about musicians. It was more a featurelenght surreal music video.

Actually, the entire plot followed the fictional musician "Pink Floyd" on his spiraling descent into madness.

I actually like listening to the CD rather than watch the movie.  Put the headphones on and you really get immersed into the world that Roger Waters created.

My orchestration teacher at Rutgers called this CD the greatest stage production of the 20th century.  And when he played "Bring The Boys Back Home" during the class, the entire class had NO idea what it was, except for me. :)

The really genius moment on the CD lies in the end and the beginning.  If you splice the two together, it is seamless.  At the end, you hear a faint voice saying, "Isn't this where" and it cuts off abruptly.  The beginning of the CD, the same faint voice says, "we came in?" with the same background music of Outside The Wall.  Brilliant, and drives home the fact that as even though the wall finally came down at the end, it starts getting built right back up again.  And the cycle continues.

Okay, end musical rant. :)

I love the beginning/ending thing. I discovered that a while back and was positively elated.

wayne's world 2. i know it wasn't as good as the first movie, but that bits with the roadie telling the story over and over about beating the chinese shopowners (or whatever) to death with their own shoes just crack me up every time. :D

Tapeheads, the Quinessential movie about 80's music!  Any movie where Manudo get's deported, has a cameo of Weird Al and contains They Might Be Giants and Devo on the soundtrack, has to be a classic!

 And it was produced by Mike Nesmith!

Was it?  I just know it's a funny movie and when I make a movie based on my adventures in College that it will be inspired by this film and hopefully I will have fruvous reunite for the film's climax where I get to a show of theirs and the antaganist get's what they diserve and the protanist wins and gets the bust cute red head!  Kinda like real life but at EFO and DVN shows!

Does Hedwig count?

Of course Hedwig counts and therefore moves to the head of the class!

Hard Day's Night, but also 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould (largely for the abundance of sexy Canadian accents)

Nobody has mentioned Mr. Holland's Opus. And that other one with Meryl Streep, I never saw it. Still one of my favourites is The Music Man. A little darker? 'Round Midnight. I always liked other so called "biographical" films like The Benny Goodman Story and The Glenn Miller Story. I hear the documentary on the life of Ramblin' Jack Elliot is very good and making the rounds of PBS stations. And what about the Blues Brothers? And Great Balls of Fire. And La Bamba. Not all great movies I guess but good for a music fix.

Hmm... most of these choices seem to be showing my age.

Oh, and I have listened to The Wall in Vancouver Planetarium, with a laser light show and a super sound system. Phenomenal acoustics. Still can't beat my headphones. Cranked. *sigh* No drugs needed.....

West Side Story, Hedwig, The Blues Brothers, Dancer in the Dark, Moulin Rouge, Saturday Night Fever, Amadeus, Buena Vista Social Club

Concert films: Stop Making Sense, 7 Worlds Collide (Neil Finn & others), Ben Folds Five Sessions @ West 54th

Films where the sound track is almost a character: Trainspotting, Run Lola Run, O Brother Where Art Thou

Films (with integral music) that I thought would suck but didn't: I Am Sam

Oooo! Buena Vista Social Club Definitely

How about The Red Violin?  Not about any one musician, but an instrument played by several.  It also has a fantastic soundtrack :)

the blues brothers rocks! we just saw it in the theater last week.

YES run lola run. loooove it. half my dvds are imports, and that's certainly a fave. i'm watching am�lie right now.

music/musician movie faves: amadeus, center stage (does that count?), moulin rouge kinda, coyote ugly, mr. holland's opus, that thing you do, ummmmmmm...

how has no one mentioned FAME?! can you tell i like cheesy teen movies? :) i'm just jealous of their talent. i mean, i can sing, but i never got to go to a special school or anything. so jealous.

blue by Krzysztof Kieslowski. I'd also recommend highly the double life of veronique.

hmm. although Blue deals with composers (sorta.. its a complicated plot) and the Double Life of Veronique involves a singer.. music is a pretty central theme in both ... I dunno, most musician movies I find pretty dull. Almost Famous is good, Amadeus, Rattle and Hum, ...

and then there is always Josie and the Pussycats.

Mine are:

Talking Heads : Stop Making Sense

Led Zeppelin : The Song Remains The Same

The Bonneroo 2002 DVD

Beatles : Yell Submarine

The Doors (starring Val Kilmer)

I forgot two superclassics.

Don't Look Back Pennebaker's Dylan documentary with the famous flash card scene and Bound for Glory the Woody Guthrie biopic.

Hey I invented dirt, can't you cut me a bit of slack?

Isn't it odd that there's never been a first class film about Beethoven? I'd love to see one about Pete Seeger. From the Library of Congress to the black list to evironmentalist. Lots of good material.

You'll have to make do with one about Tschaikowsky, called: "The Music Lovers." Ken Russell directed it sometime in the early seventies.

Hey there were SEVERAL Beethoven movies. Jeez give the dog some credit!

I said "first class!"

Hrmph! Snob!

Okay...I didn't see the movie so I can't say if it was a "first class" movie, but there was a Beethoven movie called Immortal Beloved with Gary Oldman as Beethoven.  Oh and along the same lines of composers in romantic siutations, there is Impromptu with Hugh Grant as Chopin.

At least nobody brought up Ken Russell's Listzomania starring Roger Daltry.

Talking Heads:Stop Making Sense

Wilco: I am Trying to Break Your Heart

Barenaked Ladies: Barenaked in America

This is Spinal Tap

Waiting for Guffman

Help

 

Speaking of Peter Seeger Wasn't That a Time? The Weevers reunion concert made shortly before the death of Lee Hayes is an excellent look at the old pre-dylan folk scene and how important the weavers were at keeping folk alive during the McCarthy era.

But.. but.. it had Ringo as the Pope in it! (Lisztomania)

*never actually seen it myself-- but it's the stuff of legends*

If you want to see Ringo watch Magic Christian

 "Hamlet, right? I've seen it"  

Hee.. I love that film and have it on video. Haven't watched it in ages but now I've got great visions of Peter Sellers and Ringo discussing obscenity while blowing up scale models of cathedrals and John Cleese having a heart attack over them defacing a Rembrandt and of course, Raquel Welch as the priestess of the whip "J'accuse!"

*dances off singing "mad about the boy" like a drag chanteuse*

"Alice's Restaurant" starring Arlo Guthrie was pretty good.

Yeah! I'm surprised nobody else mentioned it.

_Sweet Dreams_ (the biopic of Patsy Cline starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris)

and of course

_Coal Miner's Daughter_ (the biopic of Loretta Lynn starring Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones).