Best and worst music films and why

Almost Famous wasn't bad. The director's cut is a great improvement. My first reaction to Kate Hudson's character was that she was over-acting (ala the last scene, where she leaves her sunglasses on the airline counter), but then I realized that the 16-year old groupie would be overly dramatic too.

I really want to see Cocksucker Blues. Robert Frank is a god to me, but no one in Texas ever screens his films (the one time a year he's allowed to screen Cocksucker Blues).

I weep.

velvet goldmine was my introduction to the stooges and brian eno so it gets my vote.

Now I weep....

i'm just glad i'm not still buying superchunk cds.

The Talking Heads movie...

Worst: sorry, but Ziggy Stardust. Nice outfits, I guess, but fairly ineptly directed and kind of a snooze. I guess it's the only way to see Bowie live in 1973 nowadays, but... no thanks.

And that Wilco movie.

even though it's not exactly a music film I'd also like to give a shout out to Dogtown & Z-Boys for how well the music synchs up with the visuals and reminds you of how great KICK ASS ROCK N ROLL is!

Hedwig and the Angry Inch - because of the above and because it's simultaneously hysterical and incredibly sad. I don't know if it's the best because I have a nagging feeling that I'm forgetting something.

Worst:
Rad, the BMX movie from the eighties. Title song: John Farnham: Breaking The Ice. Uuuuuuuuuurgh ...

You are a wise, wise man.

I cannot overstate how much I hated that bullshit fuckin' movie

It wasn't a documentary = it can do whatever the fuck it liked.

I have a soft spot for all three films in Bruce McDonald's rock and roll roadtrip trilogy. Roadkill is pretty shaky but ultimately kinda cool; Highway 61 is a fantastic trip backwards through the history of rock, all along a single highway (and great cameos from Jello B, Art B and Tav F along the way, too!). Hard Core Logo has been called the punk rock Spinal Tap and that's quite possibly true...it's way nastier, funny but in a very real kind of way, and it shows a band imploding in a way that doesn't seem overly cartoonish. The hataz say "IT'S NOT REALLY PUNK WAHH WAHHH" but it definitely does have that Canadian left-coast early 80s slightly-metal punk thing DOWN. Great!

I got to see Rude Boy, the Clash film, recently, and it is quite representative of when a band agrees to have a film made about them without seemingly having any input into what the film will be about, and the director justs makes the film in line with his own very particular vision of what the group "means", cf. It Couldn't Happen Here, the PSB film. There are lots of other examples but I can't think of them now. Rude Boy is certainly entertaining, but also strangely pointless.

Another vote for Fear of a Black Hat btw.

Has anyone ever seen Speed Racer, the doc. on Vic Chesnutt? I want to see it, but don't know where to get it.

More votes for best:
Stop Making Sense
Decline of Western Civilization Part 1, but especially part 2! I can't believe neither of these has been mentioned yet.
Space is the Place (Sun Ra's 70s blaxploitation sci-fi film)
The Isle of Wight documentary - great anarchic hippies vs. ego-bloated rich rockstar drama!

Storefront Hitchcock is also good, in a Jonathan Demme kinda way

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And I was a bit unimpressed with 24 hour party people (gasp!)

I loved Velvet Goldmine, though you'd never catch the teenage me jerking off to the inner sleeve of Alladin Sane. Gross! Actually, my friend Jim, the guy who wrote it with Todd Haynes, said his mother really did walk in on him doing just that! I was amazed, it's like the least sexy photo ever. Anyway, the part at the beginning with all the kids running to the concert to the tune of "Needles in the Camel's Eye" is the most thrilling scene in a rock movie ever. And it reminds me of the final Sleaze Sisters show in Times Square.

There are no murders in Citizen Kane. And even if there were, I disagree. I don't think that worked at all. It was as confused as it was confusing.

Ahh semantics, the true love of all ILMers. I used Citizen Kane to denote the post-mortem investigative aspect of the plot. I didn't mean to imply there was literally a murder in Citizen Kane. There isn't actually a murder in Velvet Goldmine either, in case you were paying attention.

otherwise agree with majority comments on spinal tap and rude boy...

But this is what makes it great!

I liked Backbeat and The Filth and the Fury also.

best: A Hard Day's Night.

Like, wow, make fun of metal bands. The film equivalent of Lewinsky jokes.

Lose the zero and get with the hero

It was called "simultaneously the best and worst movie ever made" by Film Threat, so it fits both categories in the thread title.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - the greatest pop music film EVER?

...and what about Beatstreet?

Also, Bird. Amazingly great.

PJ Soles! Paul Bartel! Mary Woronov!

oh, and the Ramones.

Oh, and Fear of a Black Hat is great too. That Thing You Do really pisses me off cos that kid who plays the male lead looks exactly like Tom Hanks, I was half expecting the "Luke, I AM your father" scene between the two of them.

The Filth and the Fury is entertaining, as Behind the Music-style documentaries go, but it's also a lame cleaned-up version of a really interesting story. (I think the only people I trust to talk about the Sex Pistols and not make me hiss and spit "THAT'S NOT RIGHT, GODDAMMIT!" at the screen or page are Jon Savage, Gr*il M*rc*s and mark s) (you'll notice I don't include any of the Pistols themselves in that list)

I thought Velvet Goldmine was one of the most irritating things I'd ever watched, but I know a lot more about glam more now so I might like it now.

Yeah! will Lydon ever discuss that period without being an unamusing dickwad.

Considering when it came out--before hair band saturation--the topic could hardly be considered passe.

Says who?

all very, very bad.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005RYL7.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

What, it's not a music movie?

"Leathermen NEVER get nervous! Leathermen NEVER get nervous!"

"New York is the city with gusto..."

http://www.horror-wood.com/paradi13.jpg

the best music BUSINESS movie of all time, certainly.

The Book of Days, the Meredith Monk film from the early 90s - any IlMer or ILMeress actually seen it?

Not sure if We Are the Best! has officially opened over here or not--I don't think so. A little precious in spots, but quite good. My main complaint would be of a rock-critic nature: the soundtrack (not what the three girls play, but the stuff they listen to that's supposed to stand in for punk rock) is not very good. It's basically a generic imitation--maybe the filmmaker was afraid that using LiLiPUT would overwhelm everything else. (The song over the end credits is pretty good.) Everything else, especially the three girls--Hedvig was my favourite--is fine. Actually deals in a subtle way with a punk-rock dilemma, at least one that was lurking there in '77 and '78: at what point does good musicianship become a necessity rather than some kind of betrayal? When the band plays some out-the-way community hall at the end, I swear it's an inspired recreation of the Sex Pistols in Texas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfPytPjV1xc

"The Apple" is both best and worst.