In a very cool bit of music news, the “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack has topped the Billboard 200 chart this week. The 12-song mix of late-1960s and early-’70s tunes ranges from David Bowie and The Runaways to 10cc and the Jackson 5, and the inspired way director James Gunn...
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Five Most
What the Flick?! — Get on Up
Matt, Alonso and I were all shocked at how good “Get on Up” is and how it breathes life into the musical biopic, a genre that’s typically riddled with cliches. (See: “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.” No really, you should see it.) Chadwick Boseman is completely captivating as James...
Read moreBegin Again
The Weinstein Co. Rated R for language. Running time: 101 minutes. Three stars out of four. It’s been out for a couple of weeks now, but I didn’t want to let too much more time pass before I wrote a little something about “Begin Again.” This movie charmed me so...
Read moreWhat the Flick?! — Begin Again
Writer-director John Carney’s follow-up to the miraculous “Once” may not have quite the same innovative power, but it’s still a completely charming musical in a scruffily romantic version of New York City. Alonso and I kinda loved it; Amy, not so much....
Read moreWhat the Flick?! — We Are the Best!
We all went a little nuts over this charming little Swedish film about a trio of teenage girls who form a punk band in 1982 Stockholm. In its depictions of female friendship and restless youth, it’s funny and sad and true, with winning performances from its young cast....
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Lucky Them
Toni Collette is completely radiant as a smart and sexy but flawed Seattle music journalist in “Lucky Them.” She and Thomas Haden Church enjoy a great, kooky chemistry as a pair of mismatched friends on the hunt for a missing rock star. My RogerEbert.com review. Read the review here...
Read moreWhat the Flick?! — Mistaken for Strangers
“Mistaken for Strangers,” about the indie rock band The National, takes a totally different route into a genre we’ve all seen a million times: the music documentary. Matt encouraged all of us to see it because he loved it so much, and I’m so glad we did....
Read moreRogerEbert.com — CBGB
“CBGB,” about the birth of the legendary New York City music venue and the punk scene it launched in the 1970s, doesn’t even begin to capture the energy or the brashness of the pop-culture phenomenon it depicts. Too often, it feels like a distracting and inauthentic game of dress-up. My...
Read moreRogerEbert.com — Muscle Shoals
Now “Muscle Shoals” has got the Swampers. And Aretha, and Percy, and Mick, and Keith. My RogerEbert.com review of this entertaining and enlightening music documentary. Read the review here...
Read moreMovies With Friends — One Direction: This Is Us
Amy Nicholson and I know our way around a boy band. The LA Weekly film critic and I are grown-ass women, but we’re not above singing along to the Backstreet Boys in my kitchen — and harmonizing. That’s how dorky we are. So when I saw that the documentary “One...
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