Movie blog

A fish-out-of-water comedy about a talented street drummer from Harlem who enrolls in a Southern university, expecting to lead its marching band’s drumline to victory. He initially flounders in his new world, before realizing that it takes more than talent to reach the top.

The original “Woodstock” documentary film, with added elements including performances by bands who were not included in the original film, bonus footage of those who were, and a post-credits tribute to activists, performers, and organizers who passed on since the original release.

By this time, Gojira, defender of the Earth, has become a national phenomenon, akin to the Loch Ness Monster, especially with children, ingrained into the Japanese conciousness. However, the Japanese people still don’t realize that destroying the earth will summon the millennias-old protector. A young boy finds a dangerous monster that thrives on toxic waste that he names Hedorâ, a pun on the Japanese word for sludge, “hedoro.” In his dreams, he wishes for Gojira to defeat Hedorâ and, hopefully, persuade people to stop polluting the earth. Gojira, coincidentally, fights the monster because of the destruction to the environment.

Blackly comic, music-infused biopic about the life - and tragic death - of maverick British songwriter and record producer Joe Meek. Flamboyantly gay in a time when homosexuality remained outlawed, tone deaf, drug addicted, famously paranoid and obsessed with black magic, Meek (Con O’Neill) was responsible for a string of 1960s chart-toppers including ‘Have I the Right’, ‘Just Like Eddie’, ‘Johnny, Remember Me’ and the groundbreaking ‘Telstar’. Kevin Spacey co-stars as ‘Major’ Wilfred Banks, the businessman who bankrolls Meeks’s home studio at 304 Holloway Road in North London.

Rock Star is based on Tim “Ripper” Owens, who initially was in a Judas Priest cover band. He then left to join the real Judas Priest.

Oliver Stone’s homage to 60’s rock group The Doors also doubles as a biography of the group’s late singer, the “Electric Poet” Jim Morrison. The movie follows Morrison from his days as a film student in Los Angeles to his death in Paris in 1971, at the age of 27. The movies features a tour- de-force performance by Val Kilmer, who not only looks like Jim Morrison’s long-lost twin brother, but also sounds so much like him that he did much of his own singing. It has been written that even the surviving Doors had trouble distinguishing Kilmer’s vocals from Morrison’s originals.

Sara Johnson (Stiles) dreams of becoming a professional ballerina. After the accidental death of her mother, Sara is forced to move from Lemont, a quiet Chicago suburb, to her father’s ghetto apartment on Chicago’s gritty south side. The new urban environment, very different than what she is used to, adds to Sara’s feelings of loss and frustration, and her misplaced guilt, which is caused by the fact that her mother had been en route to her dance performance at the time of her death. But when she meets Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), a popular fellow student with a passion for hip hop dancing and a future brighter than his troubled past, her repressed ambition is released through a revitalized interest in dance.

Wayne Campbell is a heavy metal fanatic living in a suburban Chicago neighborhood. On a Friday Night, Wayne and his eccentric best friend, Garth Algar hosts “Wayne’s World”, a public cable network TV show in Wayne’s basement and is very popular. “Wayne’s World” catches the attention of handsome TV network executive Ben Oliver who wants “Wayne’s World” on his television network in downtown Chicago and sponsored by billionaire Noah Vandahoff, one of the largest owners in the arcade business. With “Wayne’s World” now on a Prime Time TV network, Wayne and Garth find themselves moving up big time and Wayne finds himself falling in love with Cassandra Wong, a Chinese-American lead singer of a heavy metal band. But Ben has a hidden agenda and plans on ruining their show and he bids to steal Cassandra from Wayne if Wayne and Garth do not make a success in making “Wayne’s World” #1 in the TV ratings. Wayne and Garth finds the show isn’t the same and Wayne plans to help Cassandra make it big time with her career.

After Billy Jack in sentenced to four years in prison for the “involuntary manslaughter” of the first film, the Freedom School expands and flourishes under the guidance of Jean Roberts. The utopian existence of the school is characterized by everything ranging from “yoga sports” to muckracking journalism. The diverse student population airs scathing political exposes on their privately owned television station. The narrow-minded townspeople have different ideas about their brand of liberalism. Billy Jack is released and things heat up for the school. Students are threatened and abused and the Native Americans in the neighboring village are taunted and mistreated. After Billy Jack undergoes a vision quest, the governor and the police plot to permanently put an end to their liberal shenanigans, leaving it up to Billy Jack to save the day.

USO entertainers Dixie Leonard and Eddie Sparks travel and perform together through World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The story of their adventures together, filled with love, laughter and tears, is related in flashbacks by Dixie on the eve of being awarded a medal by the President.

“The Boat That Rocked” is an ensemble comedy in which the romance takes place between the young people of the ’60s and pop music. It’s about a band of rogue DJs that captivated Britain, playing the music that defined a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, preferred jazz. The Count, a big, brash, American god of the airwaves; Quentin, the boss of Radio Rock — a pirate radio station in the middle of the North Sea that’s populated by an eclectic crew of rock and roll DJs; Gavin, the greatest DJ in Britain who has just returned from his drug tour of America to reclaim his rightful position; Dave, an ironic, intelligent and cruelly funny co-broadcaster; and a fearsome British government official out for blood against the drug takers and lawbreakers of a once-great nation.

Cheech & Chong are invited to a celebrity party/festival in Amsterdam. When they get there, however, it turns out that the guy who invited them has taken off with all the money, and the rest of the hosts have a VERY limited budget. They are actually expecting Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton, so our heroes gets to be Mr. Burt and Mr. Dolly. We follow them around Amsterdam, at their hotel, (still) smokin’ joints and doing shows.

In the summer of 2006, Sigur Rós returned home to play a series of free, unannounced concerts for the people of Iceland. This film documents their already legendary tour with intimate reflections from the band and a handful of new acoustic performances.

It’s been three weeks, two days, and 23 hours since Tris broke up with Nick. And now here she is at his gig, with a new guy. How could she have moved on so fast? This begins the night of Nick, Norah and Manhattan. The night of stripping nuns, hotel ice rooms, Russian food, psychotic ex-boyfriends and lovingly trashy ex-girlfriends. It’s the night of Julio and Salvatore. The night of holding hands and writing songs and singing in the rain. It’s a night they’ll never forget.