The Troubled Musical Tribute to 'Amy'

Glenn here offering some thoughts on films at the Sydney Film Festival. Here he is discussing the music documentary 'Amy'.

Given what director Asif Kapadia was able to accomplish with the otherwise (to me) uninteresting world of vroom vroom speed racing in Senna, logic would dictate that when handling a subject of great interest to me that the results would be even more outstanding. That doesn’t quite prove to be the case with Amy, another scrapbook collection of archival footage presenting the life of somebody who lived fast and died young, Amy Winehouse, but one which lacks quite the same verve of the director’s predecessor.

Kapadia is in the unique position of making a documentary about somebody whose life isn’t just rife for the Hollywood biopic treatment, but which actually feels like it already has been. Is her story not almost note-for-note for Mark Rydell’s The Rose with Bette Midler? It’s curious as a viewer of a documentary to feel as if I’d seen it all before in a fiction film (albeit one highly inspired by a real life person) and being disappointed because it comes off second best.

The Rose, Kurt Cobain and more after the jump...

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From Dope to Adam Jones: New Posters Roundup

Manuel here to try and help us catch up with the barrage of new film posters (and trailers!) that have dropped these past few days. It’s hard to keep up, what with Cannes, Eurovision, singing along with the Barden Bellas and furiously following Mad Max. Here are six posters you may have missed:

Musically Inclined: A #TBT double feature

The Sundance hit (review here) gets an appropriately 90s-tinged and sunny poster that features a pretty fun tagline (“It’s hard out there for a geek”) while the film adaptation of the gloriously 80s cartoon gets a Snapchatty poster (telling you everything you need to know about its intended audience) which looks as broody as that underwhelming first trailer.

Tearjerkers: Docs to sob to

Word from Cannes was pretty ecstatic about the former and for those who loved Senna and Amy Winehouse this should come as no surprise; knowing this, the poster goes for simple iconicity becoming Amy’s own signature beehive (Could Oscar make up for that Senna snub come next year?). The Slamdance doc on the Batkid “Make a Wish” story goes for heartwarming, giving us perhaps the peppiest nod to the darkest of all contemporary superheroes. If you want to get your hankies ready, there are trailers for both films.

Twice the Bradley: Can you sell a film on Bradley’s star power alone?

That’s a valid question. After three consecutive Oscar nominations and coming off two gargantuan hits which topped the box office last year, Bradley Cooper is front and center in the posters for Cameron Crowe’s Aloha and especially on John Wells’ Adam Jones. That may be enough for some people, but these marketing efforts left me wanting. That said, can we talk about the supporting casts on both of these films?

Which of these six films will you be catching in the next few months? Did you also do a double take when looking at that headshot-ey poster for the culinary-centered Adam Jones and/or gay-gasped when you saw the gorgeous Amy poster?