MICHAEL***

Like many, I was reluctant to watch a Michael Jackson biopic sanctioned by his family. I was a huge MJ fan as a kid - his Bad tour was my first live concert - and I was crestfallen when the abuse scandal broke. Like many, my relationship with his art has become tainted.  And yet I know from my childhood obsession that he was a victim of physical and verbal abuse, with extreme body dysmorphia, and an exposure to sexuality way beyond what was appropriate at an early age. I don't think any of us truly have a hand on what his sexuality was - maybe he didn't either. And for me the jury is still out on his crimes.  

So we come to the film - which I watched VOD rather than in the cinema. It's a handsomely made straightforward emancipation story featuring some breathtakingly good performances from Juliano Valdi as young Michael, and Jackson's own nephew Jaafar as the older MJ.  They are both absolutely stunning as Michael and one can only imagine the innate talent and artistry and rehearsal time to pull of his singing style and dance moves. Jaafar in particular is absolutely joyous and breath-taking to watch.  The movie is worth it for the iconic concert recreations alone - whether the first Billie Jean moonwalk, or the final recreation of Bad live.  Kudos to director Antoine Fuqua (THE EQUALISER) and cinematographer Dion Beebe (CHICAGO) for getting us as close to that feeling of seeing MJ live as we could hope for.

The problem was always going to be what was unsaid and unexplored.  How did MJ's mum really feel seeing the family abuse?  Nia Long is warmly supportive as MJ's mother in this version, but wasn't she collusive, and what impact did her strict religion have on MJ's sexuality.  That sexuality is of course not explored at all. We fast forward through puberty. We never see any interiority from Michael about that. Only his need to escape his father.  His sisters get short shrift and his brothers barely feature.  How did they feel when he moved away from them? This movie does not care.  Yes there is the rising eccentricity and the menagerie of animals. A passing mention of vitiligo.  The awful Pepsi commercial fire.  But no interrogation of Michael's deeply messed up mental health. It's such a damn shame. But given the family estate constraints, I guess this is a good as writer John Logan (GLADIATOR) could have done.  Moreover, even without the constraints, going inside of Michael's head would involve making judgment calls, which would be highly contentious. This movie is for the fans, and most fans (unlike me) have long-since acquitted Michael of any wrongdoing.

MICHAEL is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 127 minutes. It was released in cinemas in April and is now available on demand.

POWER BALLAD****

Writer-director John Carney specialises in funny, heart-warming, music-centred films about ordinary people whose lives are transformed by song.  If that sounds schmaltzy and earnest, it is, and the world is better for it.  His latest movie is a genuinely delightful genuinely laugh-out-loud funny film called POWER BALLAD.  

It stars as Paul Rudd as an ageing wedding band musician whose music is ripped off by Nick Jonas' former boy bander who needs a hit to turn his career around.  So Rudd's character and his best mate and band mate Sandy (co-writer Peter McDonald) go to LA to confront the musician and get paid.  The moral of the story is that real love, real family, real friends matter more than success but that most people haven't got the emotional depth to realise it.  I laughed a lot - McDonald's Sandy is iconic - but it also got a little dusty in the cinema at the end. A good time was had by all!

POWER BALLAD has a running time of 98 minutes and is rated R. It is on limited release in the UK and USA.

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN'***

X-MEN actor James McAvoy turns director in this charming, fast-paced, you-cannot-believe-it's-true story of two young Scottish lads who adopt Eminem-adjacent American personas to fool the prejudiced London music industry into giving them a recording contract.  Unable to attract interest as "the rapping Proclaimers", Billy and Gavin get a recording contract as their California avatars Silibil and Brains, and predictably proceed to exploit their new-found access to booze and girls.  They want to reveal their true identities on a famous MTV show live on air, and show up the music industry as bigots, because will they have the courage to go through with it? And if they don't, what will lying to their colleagues, friends, family and even to themselves to do their psyches?

The arc of this film is pretty unexciting and predictable. Decent kids get fame, go crazy, fall out with each other, turn their backs on all that is wholesome and true, before a last-act redemption.  What makes the film worth watching are the kinetic, grab-you-by-the-balls direction;  the compelling central performances from Samuel Bottomley and Sean Maclean Ross, who have to rap as well as act; and the sheer insanity of the story.  After I watched this film, I went on to watch the documentary, "The Great Hip Hop Hoax", and to read the real-life Gavin's autobiography. If anything, this feature film re-telling underplays just how good the boys were musically, just how far they got in the music industry, and just what utter nightmares they were when they started exploiting alcohol and women. 

A special shout out to actress Lucy Halliday (currently starring in The Testaments), who forms the calm moral centre of the film.  There's something really transfixing about her stoicism and quiet, understated performance.  Where another actress or another director might have asked her for histrionics, Halliday just radiates good sense, disenchantment and a quiet fierce strength as Billy's girlfriend Mary.

CALIFORNIA SCHEMIN' has a running time of 107 minutes. It played Toronto 2025 and is currently on release in the UK.

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES*****

It's decades since I watched the original rock-mockumentary SPINAL TAP, so I can't remember the specifics of any of the jokes bar 'turning it up to eleven", Stonehenge and ill-fated drummers. And since then we've had the tragic murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. I just didn't know how I was going to react to this sequel.  I am happy to report that it's just delightful:  silly, sweet, sometimes melancholy, with some insane cameos and so many moments where I was guffawing out loud. 

The movie opens with our ageing three rockers retired and variously running a cheese shop, a glue shop, and writing muzak for crime podcasts.  The daughter of their old bandmate wants to bring them back for a shameless cash-in reunion concert in New Orleans, masterminded by a thinly veiled evil Simon Cowell-Simon Fowler-style impresario played with relish by Chris Addison (The Thick Of It).  Along the way we get old beefs rehashed, and the introduction of a new drummer played by Valerie Franco.  We get to see Tap interact with evident real-life fan Elton John in an extended and tremendous cameo.  It's just a bloody good time - just so well-meaning, so funny and so full of people pretending but actually writing good rock songs and enjoying playing them. In fact, the final 25 minutes is basically just a filmed real Tap concert.  Loved every second of it.

God bless Rob Reiner and all who sailed in him. 

SPINAL TAP II: THE END CONTINUES has a running time of 83 minutes and is rated R. It was released last October.

SONG SUNG BLUE**

I have no idea why Kate Hudson has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in SONG SUNG BLUE other than that she seems really nice, is probably very popular in Hollywood, probably should have been nominated for her work in ALMOST FAMOUS, and is unlikely to ever get a meaty dramatic leading role like this again.  Her performance is good, don't get me wrong.  And it's by far the best thing in this deeply mediocre musical biopic.  But man, what a mid film this is. 

Hudson and Hugh Jackman star as a husband and wife musical tribute act to Neil Diamond working the small bar circuit in small-town 1980s America.  Of course, this being a biopic, we know something super-bad is gonna happen, and when it does we get to see some of Hudson's talent in depicting a strong but angry and frustrated woman at risk of losing herself.  And then of course we see the redemption or recovery arc before Chekhov's medical check-up strikes again.  Along the way, we see lots of Neil Diamond songs performed, although it's kind of a running joke that Jackman's character really doesn't want to perform Sweet Caroline because there's so much more to Diamond's catalogue than that. 

Writer-director Craig Brewer (HUSTLE AND FLOW) moves through the story in a fairly conventional and plodding manner. I am really not sure why this needs to be a film.  Hudson seems to be having a good time. I liked the 80s fright wigs and bedazzled outfits. But there was nothing that really gripped me or got me. Maybe because Jackman seemed to mechanical and... tired. 

SONG SUNG BLUE is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 132 minutes. It was released in the USA on Christmas Day 2025 and in the UK on New Year's Day 2026.

WICKED FOR GOOD**

WICKED FOR GOOD is the second part of John M. Chu's adaptation of the wildly successful Broadway musical. The action takes place a year after the first part. The genuinely magical Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) has scorned the fraudulent Wizard's offer to share power and is desperately trying to expose his lies.  Meanwhile, her childhood best friend Glinda (Ariana Grande) has fallen in with Madam Morrible's plans for propaganda against Elphaba, while still hoping to broker a reconciliation. Glinda remains in love with the dashingly handsome Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), and Nessarose (Marissa Bode) remains in love with Bok (Ethan Slater). Let's just say that Glinda takes romantic disappointment with more elegance than Nessa.

The problem with splitting the musical into two is that the first half contains the stronger music and all the fun.  This latter half is an almost uninterrupted downer. Oz is descending into authoritarianism policed by flying monkeys.  Almost everybody is romantically disappointed.  Worst of all, we so rarely see Glinda and Elphaba together on screen.  Whenever we do, the movie springs to life, grounded in their love for each other. The only genuine laugh of the film happens when they fight 90 minutes in. The only tears that threaten are when they sing of how the other has changed them "for good" in the final act.  When the film centres their story, and unites them, it is an altogether more engaging beast.  But when they are apart, boy, is it dull and dispiriting. Does anyone really care about Nessa and Bok, or catch any kind of romantic spark between Fiyero and Elphie? As for the Wizard and Morrible, while Jeff Goldblum is having fun indulging himself, I doubt anyone else is amused. And as badass as Michelle Yeoh is, she cannot sing.

So we twist the gears to our finale. If the first film was really Elphie's journey to self-actualisation and belief then this film is Glinda's.  I loved her arc, and the new song about a spoiled girl whose bubble probably should be popped was both beautiful and meaningful. And of course the whole thing is a technical marvel - beautifully costumed and designed.  But I continue to believe that it would have been better as one film with fewer songs and a more complete and balanced narrative arc. 

WICKED FOR GOOD is rated PG and has a running time of 138 minutes. It will be released on November 21st. 

THE CHORAL*** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Day 5

THE CHORAL is an earnest, often twee but ultimately rather moving film about a fictional choir in a Northern town putting on a performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in the midst of World War One.  Death looms over the entire film. It opens with a young lad delivering telegrams to mothers and wives reporting the death of their loved ones at the Front.  The Choral has to recruit new men to take up the places of those fighting, or worse, killed. The pianist leaves to join up.  We see men carried off to war on one train, and invalids return on the next.  In this context, one might ask about the relevance of a libretto focussed on an old man dying and a fight for his immortal soul.  And so the choirmaster recuts and recasts the oratorio as the story of a young soldier killed in France, with the angel beckoning him to Paradise recast as a young nurse calling him home.

The film is taken at a measured pace that I occasionally found too languorous. It is handsomely directed by Nicholas Hytner but I found the production design rather Farrow and Ball - curated to within an inch of its life - all eggshell blues and taupe.  Similarly, while the film is handsomely acted by an ensemble cast led by Ralph Fiennes and Roger Allum, I often felt that the script didn’t give them enough to do.  I would have loved to have seen the love story between the choirmaster and the pianist developed a little more. That said, there is a rather smashing cameo from Simon Russell Beale as a bloviating Elgar.  And among the younger cast members I was particularly impressed by the young actor playing the lead tenor whose name I cannot find on IMDB.  It’s also worth saying that the music is beautifully done, including a bravura fifteen minute compressed version of the concert by George Fenton.  Truly, to quote the choirmaster Dr Guthrie, “art does come from art”.

The script is by the legendary national treasure Alan Bennett, and features his trademark wry and often deadpan wit.  There are plenty of chuckles.  I was, however, surprised by just how frank this film is about sex. One of the choristers is a prostitute, and unsurprisingly a couple of the young lads going to war are obsessed with losing their virginity before they go.  This side of the film sometimes sits awkwardly with the more “heritage” tone of the rest of the piece, but I think that’s the point. These are just young lads, then as now.  And we sent them off to die.  It’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of that final scene. 

THE CHORAL has a running time of 113 minutes and is rated R. It played Toronto and London. It opens in the UK on November 7th and in the USA on December 25th.

TUNER**** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Surprise Film

Documentarian Daniel Roher, who won an Oscar for NAVALNY, returns to our screens with his first fiction feature.  Co-written with Robert Ramsay (INTOLERABLE CRUELTY), the movie is about a young piano tuner called Niki who suffers from an acute sensitivity to sound that ended his career as a virtuoso concert pianist. He has to wear headphones to muffle sound, but his pitch-perfect musical sense makes him an amazing piano tuner, and by a twist of fate, also an amazing safe-cracker. 

The plot mechanics are thrown into gear when Niki's beloved and aged mentor Harry suffers a heart attack and accumulates massive medical bills. Niki slips into helping a security company pilfer from their clients. This also ends up implicating his new girlfriend, a talented pianist and composer called Ruthie, through a coincidental plot device that really brought me out of this otherwise excellent film.

There's a lot to love here.  Daniel Roher knows how to cut a brisk and exciting montage.  The new music by Marius de Vries is beautiful and the way in which it is used reminded me of another excellent LFF film, WHIPLASH.  The music is complemented by the the sound design, which both depicts the movie's tension and Niki's crippling condition.  It was no surprise to discover that the sound design was by Johnnie Burns, whose work in THE ZONE OF INTEREST was some of the most stunning sound work I have ever heard.  

Kudos to the co-writers for creating a film that is often very funny but also emotional and thrilling. And kudos to the entire cast. The White Lotus' Leo Woodall has starred in feature films before, but it feels as though his performance as Niki will be his breakout role.  He has to essay everything from nonchalance to deep hurt to peril and does so beautifully.  Dustin Hoffman is absolutely hilarious and charismatic in an extended cameo as Niki's mentor Harry.  And the two leading ladies, Havana Rose Liu (LURKER) and Tovah Feldshuh do their best with smaller but still important roles.  

This film is not without its flaws, but it shows real flair, confidence and foregrounds some phenomenal performances. I am surprised that it does not yet have a commercial release date.

TUNER has a running time of 109 minutes. It played Telluride, Toronto and London.

THE TRAVELERS aka LES VOYAGEURS***** - BFI London Film Festival 2025 - Preview

In a world where illegal immigration dominates the political agenda in almost every developed market - where undocumented migrants are in fear of being taken off the streets in America - and where even in multicultural London, lamp-posts are draped in St. George's flags - Cameroonian director David Bingong has made a film that drips with empathy, insight, and even joy. I challenge anyone to watch it and not feel greater empathy and even admiration for the young men who risk their lives, fully cognisant of the risks, in order to make it in Europe and send money back home.

THE TRAVELERS is David Bingong's own journey from Cameroon to the Northern coast of Africa, across the sea to Spain.  He made the journey just over a decade ago and documents it with his handheld camera.  He is with a group of twenty or so twenty-something Cameroonians who have to sleep rough in the forest, and then take shelter in safe houses and tents where they find them. At one point we watch them inflate a perilously flimsy dingy for the crossing. It was so flimsy at first I thought they were inflating a mattress for the night.  They worry about nature, the tides, the weather. They worry about the police and army who could shoot them. They face prejudice from the Arab-Africans in the North let alone the Europeans when they land. But throughout it all, this band of travellers are in buoyant spirits, and express their hopes, dreams and fears through a cappella singing.  These songs are infectious and wondrous, but are sharply juxtaposed with the reality of the journey.  One smash-cuts to the news that a group that made the journey ahead of them has all been shot in the water.

I am no bleeding-heart liberal: this blog used to be called "Movie Reviews For Greedy Capitalist Bastards".  But my word, to spend time with these young men is to admire their courage, pluck and entrepreneurial flair. I cannot help but think that if young people with these minerals want to come and enrich our countries, why wouldn't we make an easier path for them?  

I truly hope this doc gets wide distribution. I will not forget its "characters" - or that they are real men, their stories and their drive.  It's so easy to see numbers and get scared. Far harder to see actual human beings and make those same judgments. This is film-making at its most powerful and urgent.

THE TRAVELERS has a running time of 60 minutes. It is playing at the BFI London Film Festival but both screenings are sold out.

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND****

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is a delightful film.  By turns funny, charming, moving and wise. It's so low-key it might slip from notice but that would be a terrible shame.  

Tim Key (Alan Partridge) is a widowed lottery-winning millionaire who decides to pay his wife's favourite folk band to play a concert on his beautiful but largely unpeopled British island. Much like Simon and Garfunkel, the band was once successful but has long-since split and both of its members are on their uppers.  Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) still bitterly resents his writing partner for leaving him and the now married Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) needs the money from the gig, but resents Herb for living in the past. 

Over the next ninety minutes we watch these three people deal with their past with good humour and grace.  The initial set-up is comedic. Tim Key's islander talks constantly with an off-kilter sense of humour and an intrusive starry-eyed fandom that borders on, but never crosses the line into, creepiness.  Meanwhile Tom Basden is the awkward out-of-towner stuck in the middle of nowhere with the dawning realisation that he is playing a concert for one.  There's a running joke that he can never buy anything he needs in the village shob, which always seems to sell an adjacent but not helpful object. 

But as the movie progresses and Nell turns up we get further into the emotional backstory of our characters. The movie gains depth but never gives us easy, sentimental answers. The protagonist actually experiences a credible and compelling emotional arc. And I was truly charmed by its denouement.

Director James Griffiths (CUBAN FURY) and his writer-stars (Key and Basden) have created a truly lovely, uplifting but never twee film that deserves a wide audience. What an unexpected pleasure it is!

THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND is rated PG-13 and has a running time of 99 minutes. It played Sundance and SXSW 2025 and was released in the UK in May.

SNOW WHITE (2025)****

Disney's live action remake of one of its most iconic and oldest properties, SNOW WHITE, came to our screens freighted in politics, as evidenced by it being ratings-bombed on IMDB.  So I came to the film with low expectations. However, I am delighted to report that I had a wonderful time watching this film! I found its production design and costumes beautiful and full of wondrous detail. I loved the look and characterisation CGI non-dwarves who take Snow White in.  I loved all three lead performances from Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot and Jeff Morrow.  And most of all I loved the reworking of the messaging - not as woke - but in a way that does not stretch the credulity of the modern viewer.

Let's start with the look and feel of this film. It's set in a lovely fairytale medieval middle Europe with endless beautiful detail in its architecture and costumes.  Gal Gadot's wicked stepmother has a ridiculously beautiful and stunning set of costumes - peaking in an epic sequinned dress and long cape in jewel bruise tones.  She leans into the camp. There is no back story justifying her evil. And I loved it. Snow White's iconic blue and yellow dress has been similarly beautifully rendered by designer Sandy Powell. Layers and layers of chiffon in the skirt. And yet somehow, despite all of this, a very young-looking Rachel Zegler, with a fresh face, makes Snow White seem like just a young girl rather than a princess. And we put it all together in scenes that again and again made me gasp with how gorgeous they looked - whether vistas in the forest or a particularly lovely rendering of Snow White's bier in the forest.

And on to the messaging. In this version of the story - nearly ninety years after the original - to be "fairest of them all" is to literally be fair, and kind, and beautiful from within. Snow White does indeed whistle while she works, but rather than becoming a servant to the dwarves she shows them how to clean up after themselves. We realise that poor Dopey doesn't like being so-called (who would!) and Snow White gives him the confidence to move into the spotlight. Most importantly, rather than a total stranger of a prince kissing Snow White awake, we now have a young man with whom she has already fallen in love doing the job - far easier for a modern audience to rationalise.  And yes, he is not a prince but a person living in the woods Robin Hood style.  As a result, the movie doesn't end with the kiss but with Snow White reclaiming her throne, inspiring her people to be better, to be kinder, to remember what it was to share and to hope.  Yes it's hokey. But it isn't woke. To quote the new SUPERMAN, maybe thinking the best of people is what's actually "punk rock" now.

Kudos to director Marc Webb (500 DAYS OF SUMMER) who has done a beautiful job with this film. And to screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson (THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN) who threaded the needle of keeping what we love in the fairytale but also making it more palatable for a modern audience.  I really hope the film finds its audience in due course away from all the controversy and hatefulness around its release. It's a lovely film full of heart and earnest good intentions.

SNOW WHITE is rated PG, has a running time of 109 minutes and is on global release.

BLUE MOON***** - Berlin Film Festival 2025

Ethan Hawke (TRAINING DAY) gives his career-best performance as the charismatic but despairing lyricist Lorenz Hart in Richard Linklater's latest film, BLUE MOON.  

The entirety of the film takes place in the iconic Broadway restaurant Sardi's lending the film the air of a filmed play, but no worse for that.  This is because Hart's kinetic wit and a clever use of different sections of the restaurant keep us enlivened and riveted.

The entire movie also takes place on a single evening in the early 1940s.  Hart's old composing partner Richard Rodgers is debuting his latest musical with his new lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II. Just this little thing you may have heard of called Oklahoma!  Hart is in despair because he recognises that the musical will be a smash hit - bigger than anything that he wrote with Rodgers - and also that it's not very good.  He is also in despair because both of his loves are unattainable.  

The first of these loves is the beautiful 20-year old college girl Elizabeth Weiland (Margot Qualley - THE SUBSTANCE).  Elizabeth uses Hart for his connections and basks in his flattery but has no real interest in him.  The idea that they could ever be a real couple is a delusion that Hart knows is a delusion but indulges all the same.  Their scenes snap and fizzle in the same way that gossip between young female best friends snaps and fizzles.  Hart feels more like a gay best friend than a putative lover. The inevitable blow is well telegraphed and (literally) pathetic.

The second, and more significant unattainable love is that of Hart's friend and long-time collaborator Richard Rodgers. Their scenes are far more delicate and heart-breaking  than those between Hart and Elizabeth because the love has lasted longer and the break-up was more devastating.  Andrew Scott's Rodgers is a man with incredible respect for Hart as a lyricist, and his evident love for the man is signalled in every look and line. But Rodgers is also a man who has lived with the pain of being let down and let down again by an alcoholic and who cannot bear to see Hart himself more.  It's a performance of rare subtlety. In the wrong hands their scenes could have been soapy and melodramatic.  But the genuine love and hurt and need for self-protection are telegraphed with a delicacy and tenderness that moved me greatly.

I cannot speak highly enough of a film that will has the confidence to sit comfortably within its single location, that allows Rodgers to be the quiet straight man to Hart's brilliant and performative showboat, and that trusts its audience with its Easter Eggs - the inspiration for E.B. White's Stuart Little, or a cameo from Little Stevie (Sondheim).

Kudos to all in front of the camera but most of all to Robert Kaplow (ME & ORSON WELLES) for a script of rare insight and humanity.

BLUE MOON has a running time of 100 minutes and is rated R. It had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival.

LURKER** - Berlin Film Festival 2025

LURKER is the derivative and directionless directorial debut of screenwriter-producer Alex Russell (The Bear, Beef) whose underwritten screenplay lets down its talented young cast.

It's a story that we have seen many times on screen, typically done better, from ALL ABOUT EVE to THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY. A slightly creepy acolyte of a charismatic star becomes a cuckoo in the nest, usurping the places of the hitherto best friends and ultimately of the star themselves.  In LURKER, the star, a feckless young musician called Oliver, is played by the charismatic young British actor Archie Madekwe, who has graduated from usurped friend in SALTBURN to object of attraction here.  His stalker, Matthew, is played by Theodore Pellerin, all innocent, voluble face and seething jealousy.

Over the course of the film we see the star, Oliver, quickly pick his lurker, Matthew up, and make him Instagram-famous. Of course, when Oliver and his crew then turn their attention to Matthew's colleague Jamie, Matthew quickly becomes violently possessive.  Only Oliver's solo female friend Shai (played beautifully by Havana Rose Liu) is on to Matthew from the start.

The performances are all good, and there are some genuinely hilarious moments of Entourage-style bros hanging out and social satire of vapid, narcissistic stars. But I felt like Alex Russell didn't have the courage of his convictions or the willingness to push the film into more edgy psycho-sexual areas. The result was a film that kind of meandered its way into an ending that felt - dare I say it - derivative of HBO's awful TV series The Idol.  In that show we spent a lot of the episodes thinking the star was captive to the lurker only to find out that it was the lurker who was being exploited all along.  I don't know who wrote which ending first, but needless to say that this LURKER felt like a stitched together version of so many similar films and shows that I was never surprised by it and never entranced by it. 

LURKER has a running time of 100 minutes. It played Sundance and Berlin 2025.

SLY LIVES! AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS*****

Questlove returns to our screens with another banging music doc, and the second this month, with his investigation of the genius that is Sly Stone.  We begin in the 60s in the Bay Area where this gangly multi-talented multi-instrumentalist is DJ'ing across genre-lines. Pretty soon Sly forms a band that will cross colour and gender-lines and make some of the most iconic funk tracks of the late 60s and early 70s. These are tracks that suffused by childhood on my parents' vinyl and then dominated the airwaves when sampled by the artists who decorated our walls and filled our bedrooms in the 80s - from Prince to Public Enemy.

Musical talent from Andre 3000 to Chaka Khan to Nile Rodgers to Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis are on hand to tell us just why Sly and the Family Stone's tracks were so gripping and so continuously influential. They are interspersed with archive footage of the band rehearsing and playing, and contemporaneous interviews with Sly. We see a man who is evidently a musical genius and demanding of his collaborators.   A man whose progressive message and musical style were overtaken when the 70s turned bad.  And a man who ultimately wasted his talent on decades of drug abuse.  He could have become an influential producer himself - like Nile Rodgers. 

Questlove's message is ultimately hopeful. Sly Lives! through every artist influenced by him today.  But I wasn't convinced by his thesis that there is something uniquely difficult and burdensome about black genius. The film argues that black artists are disposable commodities for a cruel entertainment industry and still predominantly white audience.  But having just watched heartbreaking documentaries about Boyzone and Robbie Williams (and I am NOT claiming equivalence of genius), I think the perils and pitfalls and exploitation are endemic in the industry no matter the colour of the artist.

SLY LIVES! AKA THE BURDEN OF BLACK GENIUS has a running time of 112 minutes. It was released on Hulu earlier this week.

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN**

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN is a deeply frustrating biopic of Bob Dylan.  Rather than challenging his misogynistic bullshit, the film replicates it.  Director James Mangold (WALK THE LINE) is not interested in interrogating the complexity of Saint Bob. Rather, everything must be packaged neatly in a convenient narrative arc.

That arc is massaged to within an inch of its life. Young Bob - choirboy turned gravelly voiced folk-singer - makes a pilgrimage to New York to meet his chronically ill hero Woody Guthrie.  Scoot McNairy (IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS) stuns in an entirely wordless performance as Guthrie, struck mute with Hungtington's Disease, but still keen to be surrounded by music. Such is Bob's evident talent that he is taken in by a kindly, paternal Pete Seeger (Ed Norton) and his wife Toshi, a couple whose life was devoted to preserving the American folk music tradition.

Bob finds fame and massive music sales with his protest songs against a backdrop of the civil rights movement.  But this is the era of the Beatles and The Stones and The Kinks and he feels trapped in amber by the historicity of the folk movement.  He hires a blues rock band and records what will be his first electric rock album, Highway 61 Revisited.  

The narrative arc poses a big showdown at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Will Bob play nice and play folk? Or will he disappoint everyone around him and play electric rock?  We all know the answer. And we all know that what transpired afterwards didn't happen at Newport but in the Manchester Free Trade Hall a year later. But that doesn't fit Mangold's neat and claustrophobically American narrative. Nowhere do we see Bob travel to London and the influence the Swinging Sixties Carnaby Street vibe had on him. He just goes from one scene to the next transformed from shabby folk clothes to extra tight Carnaby Street suits and winkle pickers.  

The problem with the way this film is constructed is that most everyone is a single-dimension character, giving the excellent cast very little to do. Pretty much everyone just looks at Bob with an air of disappointment.  Elle Fanning (The Great) plays Sylvie Russo - a thinly veiled version of Bob's real-life girlfriend Suze Rotolo - and just looks at Bob disappointed and heartbroken.  Monica Barbaro plays folk icon Joan Baez and just looks at Bob disappointed and contemptuous. Peter Seege looks disappointed and paternally heartbroken.  You get the picture.

And what of Bob himself? Timothee Chalamet (DUNE) plays Bob with pads in his cheeks to give him a boyish round-face, and has admirably mastered his growly deliberately ugly style of singing and playing. It's a great impersonation, but for my money, outclassed by Scoot McNairy in the acting department.  You get the ferocity of Bob, his uncompromising attitude toward music.  But the film skips so lightly over his way of mooching off women, or his initial passive-aggressive barb that Joan Baez sings too well.... Imagine a film with this cast that really wanted to get into the verbal attack on Joan in Like A Rolling Stone, or his womanising, or his fundamentally dishonest appropriation of a persona.  

But no, this is a film for fans that wants us to see (rightly) just how bloody brilliant his early music was. Where the film shines is in giving is so much music so brilliantly rendered. But by including so much music it squeezes out the time that could have been spent on personal relationships.  I feel like maybe this was a deliberate choice and a cowardly one too.

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN is rated R and has a running time of 141 minutes.  It was released in the USA on December 14th and opens in the UK on January 17th 2025.

BETTER MAN*****

Recency bias, but BETTER MAN may be one of the best films I saw in 2024. I cannot describe just how imaginative, kinetic, audacious and moving this film is.  Admittedly, Robbie Williams was a big part of the pop-cultural backdrop of my teenage years and early 20s. But I would like to think that even if you had never heard of one of Britain's biggest selling music stars, you would still get a lot from this deeply raw, deeply humane, film.

Williams has been open about his life story, not least in a multi-part Netflix doc.  He grew up in poverty in a former industrial town in England, with a father (Inside No. 9's Steve Pemberton - superb) who dreamt of stardom and abandoned Robbie and his mum when he was little.  At 15, he was plucked from obscurity to be part of one of the biggest Boy Band's of all time, but on the strict instructions that he was just the clown and the backing dancer, rather than having any musical or creative credibility.  By 19 he had left Take That and gone solo, with the self-imposed demons of trying to impress his absentee dad and trying to outcompete his old band and their newer rivals, Oasis. If Oasis sold out Knebworth, then Williams too had to sell out Knebworth.

The film is absolutely blunt about Williams' demons.  He is an alcoholic and drug addict and faces demons of self-doubt and self-hatred.  At many points we see Williams cutting cocaine with a razor and we later see suicidal ideation.  The genius of Williams and writer-director Michael Gracey (THE GREATEST SHOWMAN) is to depict Williams as a CGI-chimp, overlaid on real vocal and physical performance from Jonno Davies.  Through that avatar we see Williams as he sees himself - an outcast, a court jester, an animal.  But we also see an incredible range of emotion - from fear to joy to hurt and anxiety.  The eyes are so expressive and the child-hood version of the chimp is particularly winning.  And when Robbie is facing his demons, they are avatars of himself as a chimp - in various guises and from different parts of his life.  When he finally faces them down, and learns to forgive his dad in order to love himself, it's a moment of deep catharsis.

That Williams survives is down to his own hard work in rehab and his own honesty - but also the love of three women - his mum, his adoring grandma (Alison Steadman - superb as always) and for a period his fiancé his Nicole Appleton.  This part of the story is hard to watch.  Williams' addiction is in full-throttle and she is clearly in love with him.  We also get the revelation that she was forced into an abortion by her manager as she was on the cusp of her own chart success.

And what of the construction of the film?  Well, hear me out: this may well be the best movie musical of 2024, and yes that includes WICKED. The set-piece numbers are sensational.  There's a bravura montage set to Williams' hit Rock DJ, filmed on Piccadilly and Regent Street, that takes us through Take That's rise to success. For those of who remember those outfits and haircuts and dance moves, it's a kinetic, technically brilliant piece of musical theatre. Later in the film there's an equally brilliantly staged montage that shows Williams going from a meet-cute with Appleton to getting engaged and mourning the abortion.  The actress Raechelle Banno must be quite some dancer, as that dance scene set on a boat is phenomenal.  The final musical number I would like to call out is to Williams' hit Angels. Here we have him on the verge of Knebworth but mourning the death of his grandma. This is when I started crying.

I cannot speak more highly of Williams' honesty and creativity and his partnership with Gracey. BETTER MAN is one of the most unique, compelling and affecting films I have seen all year. It's also one of the most honest and moving depiction of addiction and mental health crisis that I have seen on film EVER.  I heartily recommend it to you.

BETTER MAN is rated R, has a running time of 134 minutes, and was released in the USA on Christmas Day and  UK on Boxing Day.

BEATLES '64****

Producer Martin Scorsese and director David Tedeschi (THE 50 YEAR ARGUMENT) have created something rather wonderful in this slice of history carefully contextualised and constructed.  They begin with archive footage from the legendary Maysles brothers who were present at the peak of Beatlemania when the lads landed in JFK and played The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. We see them at press conferences, and follow them into their hotel suite, hostages to the screaming fans outside.  We follow them to a US Embassy reception where John is pissed off by the snobbery.  And we see the contemporary fans interviewed in all their teenage hysteria, or casual indifference as is the case of some jazz loving black teenagers in Harlem. 

It's fascinating to see how the surviving Beatles interpret the footage that the Maysles took. McCartney claims that America needed to let off steam and have some fun in the wake of the Kennedy assassination. That sounds about right. But when he claims that they didn't give a proverbial about the embassy snobbery, that sounds like defensiveness, and the archive insult closer to the truth.

We also get valuable context from eminent interviewees - whether the Ronnettes, Smokey Robinson or David Lynch. Robinson is particularly fascinating as he speaks to the racial politics of the time, and the balance between the Beatles appropriating black rock'n'roll but also crediting it - something no other white artists had bothered to do.

But perhaps the most fascinating part of the documentary is pairing contemporary footage of hysterical teens with their now middle-aged selves looking back on their feelings and actions in 1964.  They still seem passionate about the Beatles, and pairing both sets of interviews take us somewhat closer to understanding the nature of pop-culture mania. 

Overall, this is a surprisingly moving and immersive film-watching experience. I felt that had lived through this weird little bubble in pop culture history - its teenagers not distant relics but revivified as excited, hopeful, giddy.  This is documentary-making at its best.

BEATLES '64 has a running time of 105 minutes and was released on Disney+ last month.

ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 2

I was desperately disappointed by this new documentary by the iconic R J Cutler (BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD'S A LITTLE BLURRY) and Elton's husband David Furnish. The framing device is Elton preparing for his final American gig at Dodger Stadium, which then allows Elton to take us back to the height of his fame and his epic 1975 Dodger Stadium gigs. Don't get me wrong. Elton is an astoundingly good musician and performer and so charmingly candid about his life that he makes for an interesting subject. The problem is that there wasn't anything here that hadn't already been explored in the wonderfully entertaining and deeply moving ROCKETMAN. In that film we get the suburban childhood and gigging, the rebellion into rock and roll, the insecurity over appearance, the confusion over sexuality, the drug addiction and domestic abuse. I guess what we get here is the framing device - the miraculous recovery and fulfilled family life - but unfortunately that's not where the focus really is.  The balance is far more to the looking back to the career. As a result, this doc just felt a bit redundant.

ELTON JOHN: NEVER TOO LATE is rated PG-13. It played Toronto and London 2024 and was released on November 15th on Disney plus.

WICKED: PART I***

I came to WICKED: PART I cold. I had not seen the musical, heard any of the songs, and was unspoiled as to plot.  Here is what I discovered:

The movie is Act One of a two act musical that serves as a prequel to THE WIZARD OF OZ.  It begins with the death of the Wicked Witch of the West as announced by the Glinda the Good Witch and then takes us back to their teenage friendship at the unfortunately named Shiz University.  

We learn that the Wicked Witch was actually a thoughtful, earnest, sensitive girl called Elphaba who had been spurned by society because of her green skin and her frighteningly uncontrollable actual magic powers. She dreamed of meeting the Wizard of Oz so that he could grant her a wish.  As Galinda soon realises, that wish is to get rid of her green skin, because as much as Elphaba pretends not to care what people think about her, of course she does.  Thanks to a mix-up, the two teenagers become best friends.  Galinda begins to discover her conscience just as Elphaba discovers that she has a crush on Galinda's dashing and apparently superficial boyfriend Fiyero. They bond over their shared horror at the persecution of animals, who have hitherto lived side-by-side with humans in a Bojack Horseman style world. The film culminates in the girls finally arriving in the Emerald City to meet the Wizard and asking for her heart's desire....

Let's start with the negatives. First of all, the music is not to my taste. The vast majority is derivative, mediocre and eminently skippable. The exceptions are the songs Popular and Defying Gravity, but that's thin gruel for a two hour, forty minute running time. Second of all, the themes of the musical are obvious, ham-fisted and trite.  I feel that I have seen a bazillion movies about how the uniquely talented but superficially different people are excluded and mocked only to use their power for vengeance. X-MEN anyone?  And oh the delicious irony of a film so very inclusive that refuses to cast even one little person as a munchkin.  Third, the plot is just so blatantly obvious. I guessed the plot twist concerning the Wizard and the plot twist concerning Fiyero while watching Act One, and googled post-film to confirm my guesses.

Still, there's a lot to love too, and on the whole I did enjoy watching the film.  The production and costume design are exceptionally good, and I loved the steampunk aesthetic of the world.  Ariana Grande is hilarious as Galinda and Cynthia Erivo (HARRIET) is heartbreaking as Elphaba, and on the rare occasions when they sing together it's just so perfectly harmonious it's joyous. The two actresses evidently fell in love with each other during filming and that reads on screen. When they share a moment on a dance floor it brings tears to our eyes.  They are the reason why the running time flies by so fast and why - despite the largely mediocre score and unsubtle politics - the film is memorable.

WICKED: PART I is rated PG and has a running time of 160 minutes. It is on global release.

MARIA***** - BFI London Film Festival 2024 - Day 10

Pablo Larrain's MARIA is a stunning film about iconic opera singer Maria Callas featuring a central performance by Angelina Jolie of such fragility and bravery that it destroyed me. It's a cinematic achievement at least on par with Larrain's Jackie Kennedy biopic, and arguably surpasses it. Every aspect is perfection.

The film focuses on the final week of Callas' life, sequestered in a grand Parisian apartment with her faithful housekeeper and butler (Alba Rohrwacher - HUNGRY HEARTS and Pierfrancesco Favino - WORLD WAR Z). Callas is dying of liver failure, ligament failure and is addicted to a variety of drugs.  Illness, dramatic weight loss, over-singing in her youth - whatever the reason - her voice has also failed her.  Publicly she claims that she will never perform again, but she is secretly rehearsing, with pitiful results. Added to the loss of her voice, we also know that she is suffering from heartbreak. Her big sister (Valerie Golina - PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE - in a deeply moving cameo) tells Maria to look forward but this entire film is of a woman trapped in her past.  Her mother pimped her out as a singer in Nazi occupied Athens and maybe more. Her first husband robbed her blind (though this is not shown here).  Her beloved Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer - The Turkish Detective) stopped her from singing, maybe made her have a forced abortion, and then left her for Jackie Kennedy.  Only her paid employees show her any love or concern for her health.

Robbed of love and health and finally her voice, Maria retreats into a drug-induced journey through her past.  Her drug Mandrax is personified by Kodi Smit-McPhee (Disclaimer) as a young interviewer. As befits a woman who has been a public persona her entire life, Maria chooses what to withhold, and what narrative to spin. She is deliberately enigmatic and mysterious. But this is a kind of defence mechanism and an act of desperation, and her spin is unsuccessful, not least in the way she discusses her maybe pregnancy.

Angelina Jolie is magnificent and fearless in this role.  Her final aria sung in a nightdress to an empty apartment (and a crowd outside, unknown to her) had me in tears. We believe in every ounce of lifelong heartbreak.  She is a diva and she is desperate. She is vulnerable and commanding all at once. Kudos to the technical team who found a way to blend Jolie's own singing with Callas' iconic recordings, particularly in her final week, where her voice is unsteady and uneven. I always believed that Angelina was singing, and this is no mean feat. We see her lips and vocal chords and body tremble and convey emotion.  It absolutely makes the film credible and moving.

Kudos also to cinematographer Ed Lachman (CAROL) for so beautifully capturing sunlit 1970s Paris, but also the crisp black and white flashbacks to Callas at her peak, and the grainy dreamed interviews with Mandrax.  This is a film whose technical brilliance is completely at the service of the narrative. And what a narrative.  Steven Knight - of Peaky Blinders fame - creates a script that in a short time gives us a lifetime of pain and hurt. And that uses music, always Callas' own music - to express her feelings and propel the narrative. For those of us who know these aria by heart, the lyrics, the knowledge of Callas' life, and Jolie's performance, blend into something transcendent.  

My only question is whether the film will work as well for those not familiar with Callas' work, given Pablo Larrain's refusal to give subtitles and translations of the opera. He explained before the screening that he tried to avoid surtitles when watching opera as a child and wanted to relate purely to the performance. I kind of agree, but feel this may be a barrier to some audience members.

MARIA has a running time of 124 minutes and is rated R. It played Venice and London 2024. It will have a limited theatrical release on November 27th and then will be released on Netflix on December 11th.