I join CTV NewsChannel anchor Scott Hirsch to recap the final days of TIFF and talk about the harrowing “The Long Walk,” the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with guest anchor Zuraidah Alman to talk about new movies in theatres including the harrowing “The Long Walk,” the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 13:09)
I join CP24 to talk about the harrowing “The Long Walk,” the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CP24 to talk about the big movies hitting theatres and streaming this week including the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues” and the Netflix doc A.K.A. Chatlie Sheen.
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I joined CTV NewsChannel anchor Roger Peterson to have a look at new movies coming to theatres including the harrowing “The Long Walk,” the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join the Bell Media Radio Network national night time show “Shane Hewitt and the Night Shift” for “Booze & Reviews!” This week I review the rockin’ “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” and suggest a cocktail to enjoy while watching the movie.
Click HERE to listen to Shane and me talk about how to correctly pronounce Denzel Washington’s name (you’ve been doing it wrong), a new Davbid Bowie musical and an unlikely stand up comic.
For the Booze & Reviews look at the rockin’ “Spinal Tapo II: Last Rites” and some cocktails to enjoy with the movie click HERE!
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make the bed! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the harrowing “The Long Walk,” the soapy “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” and the rockin’ “Spinal Tap: The End Continues.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” a new mockumentary now rockin’ in theatres, sees the estranged members of metal legends Spinal Tap thrown together for one last gig. Times have changed, but have they?
CAST: Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Fran Drescher, Questlove, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Kerry Godliman and Paul Shaffer. Directed by Rob Reiner.
REVIEW: “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” the legacy sequel to the forty-one-year-old classic mock rock doc, captures the spirit of the original, but does not turn the volume of laughs up to 11.
Following a fifteen-year break, the estranged members of heavy metal band Spinal Tap— David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls (Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer)—are forced to reunite for a one-off show in New Orleans.
Their acrimonious split sent them in different directions. Guitarist Tufnel has a shop called Nigel’s Cheese & Guitars, where he trades cheese for musical instruments. Singer/guitarist McKean writes scores for b-horror movies like the retirement home horror “Night of the Assisted Living Dead”, and bassist Smalls runs a glue museum called Stick to It.
Reluctantly reunited, they are once again under the scrutiny of documentarian Marty Di Bergi (Rob Reiner) who captures the backstage drama, ego trips and the search for a drummer.
The original film was groundbreaking, a masterful mock doc that set the template for everything from “Bob Roberts” and “Borat” to “The Office” and “A Mighty Wind.” The new film, however, feels like nostalgia. We’re used to the form, and while it’s nostalgic fun to spend time with silly-but-sweet rockers, our familiarity with the original blunts the impact of the new one.
There are some laugh out loud moments in “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” but the satire doesn’t land in quite the same way it did forty-one years ago. British comedian Chris Addison’s portrayal of the music hating concert promoter is bang on. He’s the embodiment of the ruthless music executive who, with a straight face, suggests it would secure the band’s legacy if, “during the gig at least one, but ideally no more than two of you were to die.” When he’s on screen the spoof is sharpened to a fine point.
It’s when the film gets awkwardly reflective with a mix of satire and emotion that it hits a flat note. As old wounds are opened and an air of mortality hangs over the band, the jokes become fewer and further between. A new song, “Rockin’ in the Urn,” is a reflection on aging, but it hits the expected tone, self-serious, over the top and metal as hell. That scene hits the right chord, managing laughs with the band’s reflections on refusing to stop rockin’ in the face of their own impermanence.
“Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” is a cover version of a fan favorite. Guest, McKean, Shearer and Reiner, who directs as well as appears as Marty Di Bergi, are game, but the looming specter of the original casts a long shadow over the proceedings.
Like much of the music it chronicled in its 1970s heyday, Creem Magazine was rough n’ rowdy and self-destructive. “Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine,” a new documentary, now streaming courtesy of Virtual Cinema, has a close look at the magazine that embodied an irreverent but fervent rock n’ roll attitude. “Nearly fifty years after Creem’s first issue published, it still stands for something,” says JJ Kramer, son of the founding publisher Barry Kramer. “Either you’re in on the joke, or you are the joke.”
Creem began as something different than the scrappy, politically incorrect screed that once so savagely reviewed a Runaways album that Joan Jett stormed the offices looking for revenge and created the term “punk rock.” Under guidance of co-founder Tony Reay the Detroit magazine was conceived as a blues-rock forum but within a few issues Reay was on the curb and publisher Barry Kramer had hired Dave Marsh, a rock n’ roll misfit who brought a blue-collar street cred to the magazine’s content.
A fiercely opinionated champion of the take no prisoners approach to music journalism Marsh became the cornerstone of a gritty group of writers, like Lester Bangs, Jaan Uhelszki and Robert Christgau, who redefined how the music was discussed in the press. “It was like it was written by a bunch on convicts in Joliet State Prison,” says artist and musician Lamar Sorrento.
As a poke in the eye to the staider Rolling Stone, the renegades even subtitled their mag “America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine.”
Their distance from taste makers on the coasts and proximity to Motor City music scene gave them a unique take. Working above a rundown record shop in inner city Detroit, and later on a rural commune, Kramer and Company created music journalism fuelled by passion, drugs and physical disagreements. Fights over content were not uncommon. Envelopes were pushed, breasts were exposed, leading former fan Jeff Daniels to say buying the magazine was like “buying Playboy, you didn’t want your parents to see either one of them.”
The unconventional group advocated for Alice Cooper (despite labelling their debut LP “a waste of plastic.”), MC5 and The Stooges, bands with a similar swagger and anti-commercial instincts as the writers themselves. Members of R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and many others appear in the movie and were fans, and later went on to create idiosyncratic music like the punk, new wave and hard rock they read about in Creem.
The deaths of Kramer and Bangs and the defections of Marsh and Christgau to rival Rolling Stone spelled the end of the mag’s influential run and by 1989 it had been bought and sold, and ultimately shut down, leaving behind yellowing pages of some of the best rock n’ roll writing of the 1970s.
To capture the counter-cultural impact of Creem director Scott Crawford has assembled many of the original players, including the iconoclastic Jaan Uhelszki, one of the first female rock writers and now, one of the co-producers on the film. It’s slickly produced, makes good use of archival footage and zips along at a rapid pace. Perhaps too rapid. Crawford covers two decades of history in under eighty minutes, briskly walking us through the tumultuous timeframe. It is entertaining, particularly for those old enough to have bought the magazine on the stands, but although complete, it feels rushed. This cast of characters feels like each could warrant their own movie, and hell, I’d pay to see a movie about the contentious relationship between Lou Reed and the gonzo Bangs alone.
“Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine” isn’t as rough around the edges as the magazine it documents, but it does display why a scrappy upstart from Detroit was able to make and leave its mark. In the film legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen says that rock ‘n roll is about the freedom to express yourself very loudly. “And I think that’s what Creem did.”
Starting July 31, 2020, support independent Canadian cinemas closed due to COVID-19.
Proceeds from virtual ticket purchases of CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine will help sustain programming and support efforts to reopen these participating theaters:
Toronto – The Royal
Winnipeg – The Winnipeg Cinematheque
More locations soon-to-be-announced
Access Virtual Cinemas
Point your browser to: https://www.filmswelike.com/virtual-cinema-creem-americas-only-rock-n-roll-magazine and select the cinema you wish to support.
The cost to purchase the film is $9.99 (CND).
