Love & Mercy (2014) Review

Biopics, especially musical biopics, have to face a challenge. How on Earth are they going to interest and engross the audience in the genius of its main character with more than simply reenacting some key events in that person's life? How do they explain and depict the creative or revolutionary force that has come so far as to inspire an entire movie? Well, I don't know, I'm but a lowly internet critic but plenty of people in the movie business have tried their hand at it. Add to that list Bill Pohlad with Love & Mercy, his biopic of Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys.

Frank (2014) Review

Oh, what a wonderful surprise Frank is. On the surface it seems to be a wacky comedy about a nutjob band leader wearing a giant fake head at all times. What could have been a throwaway gag stretched to feature film length becomes a small cinematic miracle.

Nowhere Boy (2009) Review

What's it with all those music biopics in the last years? First we got the Ray Charles movie Ray, then Johnny Cash flick Walk the Line, they even made one about Notorious B.I.G., simply called Notorious. Hell, there was even a spoof of the whole craze, Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story with John C. Reilly. So it was only a matter of time until there was one about legendary John Lennon (and if you don't know who that is, then go, feel embarrassed and google it), Nowhere Boy!

First off a warning: This film is not about the Beatles, it's not about Lennon's whole life, in a way it's not even really about the music behind the genius. It rather focuses on the family and especially mother issues Lennon had to deal with when he grew up. By taking this refreshingly different approach to the whole idea of biopics director Sam Taylor-Wood brings in a new perspective and tries to be different from other rather generic film biographies. But Lennon and Beatles fans might be a little disappointed as Nowhere Boy is not really delivering what one might expect. We have a pretty short time frame that's being covered and are essentially given a classical coming-of-age story, as it shows how Lennon discovered his passion for music, struggles with school and his family and ends with him starting his professional career.

It's an enjoyable movie nonetheless, the acting by Aaron Johnson who plays Lennon and especially Kristin Scott Thomas who plays his aunt is top-notch, the atmosphere of 50s Great Britain is captured really well and we get a nice soundtrack that's heavy on rock'n roll. Unfortunately the story itself is nothing too special. If you'd replace the main character's name with anything but John Lennon you'd only have another Sunday afternoon tea movie, there just doesn't seem to be much at stake here.

It's a nice watch but never really gets you to care very much about the whole subject, even the big emotional moments barely raise your heartbeat (besides one scene that comes out of nowhere and leaves you asking WTF?). An influential musician like John Lennon deserves better than that. So if you're a hardcore Lennon fan there's probably no way around Nowhere Boy, but everybody else can just skip this one without missing anything extraordinary.

It Might Get Loud (2008) Review

Jack White? Jimmy Page? The Edge? If it clicked at least once then It Might Get Loud should be the movie for you. SHOULD be. Because unfortunately Davis Guggenheim’s documentary isn’t as awesome as its main characters suggest.

Guggenheim got the three guitar legends together, Jack White from the White Stripes and The Raconteurs, Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin and The Edge from U2, to see what's going to happen and to create greatness. I mean, what else do you expect other than pure genius when all these musical masterminds are united?

The movie starts out pretty nicely with the three of them looking forward to meeting each other. We get a little bit of back story for each of the musicians, always accompanied by some of their great music. But what comes then? Not much, honestly. Although the three are portrayed as very different characters there is not much tension or excitement going on, they just get together, throw lots of phrases around, most of them empty and meaningless or just painfully cliched, and jam a little bit throughout and in the end. That's it. God, what could have been amazing is just forgettable. As a serious documentary this is just not enough, any TV documentary has more substance than this film. So if you are not an absolute fan boy of their music or total guitar geek you might just skip It Might Get Loud.

The only redeeming feature is that it made me listen to White Stripes, U2 and Led Zeppelin right afterwards because even if this movie is a big disappointment the music is still kick-ass.