An Underrated Music Movie Film Festival
Welcome to the latest edition of All the Music of All the World, our series where we aim to share music worth being passionate about. Consider us a guide who can help you get the most out of your Victrola by giving you new music to listen to, or new ways to think about music you already know.
We’ve now entered the part of the calendar—at least in the Northern Hemisphere—where the most appealing thing to do at any moment is stay inside, tuck yourself under a blanket, and watch whatever is jamming up your various streaming queues. This season is also called “fall,” or, if you drink with your pinkies out, “autumn.”
Because we here at All the Music of All the World are mostly concerned with, well, music, we enjoy spending our viewing hours watching music movies. The genre has been around since basically the beginning of film (shout out The Jazz Singer, despite its, to put it delicately, problems), and there are dozens upon dozens of music movies for you to set your peepers on this fall and winter.
As such, All the Music of All the World has taken it upon ourselves to curate a little mini-music-film festival for you. But we’re not just going to go the obvious route: all these music movies are underrated and deserve a second thought while you eat soup and wear flannel in the coming months. Without further ado, here are the picks:
Biopic: Control
When Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis died by suicide in 1980 at the age of 24, he basically locked all memories of his band in a black-and-white amber: basically every promo shot of the band is devoid of color. Even their album covers followed suit. Anton Corbijn’s 2007 biopic of the band’s quick rise and fall—they were together for something like 40 months, started after a Sex Pistols show—is a stark black and white dissection of how Curtis’ life felt like it was spiraling out of control, and while not condoning his death, somewhat explains how a 24-year-old would make the decision he did.
His marriage—impulsive, probably to soothe himself for “stealing” his friend’s girlfriend—was unraveling. He was having a passionate affair that left him feeling guilty, worn out, and unable to emotionally provide, and his band was on the cusp of touring the U.S., which he was frankly terrified and scared to do. And finally, his epilepsy started to escalate, and his drugs didn’t work, leaving him feeling like he needed to choose the music or his physical well-being.
It’s not light afternoon viewing, but it’s the most devastating biopic, allergic to cliché and with genuinely magnetic musical performances by the guys cast to be the band and Curtis.
Watch on: Tubi.
Three Bonus Picks: Walk the Line, which is better than you remember. Miles Ahead, Don Cheadle’s Miles Davis biopic covers a wild period of Miles’ career, and maybe “gets” him better than any other movie could. The Jackson: An American Dream, which may trend corny, but which is a perfect Sunday afternoon/evening marathon watch.
Documentary: Dig!
Essentially a documentary that covers what happens when one band achieves modest indie rock fame (the Dandy Warhols) and the other seems to thrive on stepping on every single rake available to them, including drugs, fighting each other onstage, and threatening to kill other bands (Brian Jonestown Massacre), Dig! is a real-life This is Spinal Tap, if Nigel Tufnel played psych rock and was depressed. It’s uproariously funny, and makes you wonder why anyone ever would choose to be in a band, nonetheless choose to be in either of these bands. It’s raw, and shows all the warts of both bands, in a way documentaries usually do not, especially not the recent artist-approved docs of today.
Watch on: Apple TV
Three Bonus Picks: History of the Eagles, which shows what happens when you become super successful but still harbor 40 year old grudges against former guitarists (it rules). Stax: Soulsville U.S.A. is a miniseries that covers the rise and fall of the Stax soul music empire, and Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him)?, is the definitive picture of the most underrated singer and songwriter in American history (seriously).
Not Quite a Biopic, More of a Drama with Music, Really: Inside Llewyn Davis
For our money, this Coen Brothers masterpiece is the best music movie of all time. It follows the fictional folk singer of the title (though he is inspired by Dave Van Ronk) as he struggles to sell himself as a commodity, while trying to hold on the primacy and integrity of folk music. In memorable scene after scene, Llewyn records corny space race folk ballads for a quick paycheck, plays for a club owner who dismisses him brutally, and is mugged, beaten, and deals with the fallout of cheating with the female half of a folk duo he sees as competition that is not up to his snuff. He does everything right, has the talent, has the songs, has the integrity, and the movie ends—this doesn’t spoil anything—with him coming into a folk club to see Bob Dylan playing a song Llewyn regularly played on the folk circuit, instantaneously realizing that Dylan is the real deal, and that he’s never going to have the career Bob would go on to have. It’s a movie about how all the talent in the world doesn’t matter if things don’t break your way, which is the most truthful reality about music ever in film.
Watch on: Pluto TV.
Three Bonus Picks: Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous influenced more people to become music journalists than should be allowed for the greater public good, for its beautiful picture of early ‘70s rock culture. O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the best Odyssey adaptation not made by Christopher Nolan, and single-handedly relaunched bluegrass as a popular genre. CB4 dissects gangsta rap from a remove that you’d usually need decades to achieve; it happened basically the same time as all the music originally came out.
