Posts Tagged ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’

LOOKING BACK AT 2024: THE “NAUGHTY” AND “NICE” LISTS! FIRST THE NICE!

I take a look back at the year that was at the movies. From a chimp who becomes a pop superstar and a 93-year-old action star to an all-singing-all-dancing villain and an enormous elf, the movies gifted us the best and worst–the naughty and nice, the champagne and lumps of coal–of what Hollywood and elsewhere has to offer.

Here is the Nice List, a compendium of the very best films of the year, presented alphabetically.

Instead of attempting to unwind Dylan’s mystique, “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, wisely opts for a portrait of the time, the America and, in microcosm, the Greenwich Village folk era, that produced the singer. The Cuban Missile Crisis and the battle for civil rights indirectly hang heavy over the film, completing the portrait of the time that fuelled Dylan’s early work.  The back-to-basics approach benefits the movie, allowing Timothée Chalamet’s tour de force lead performance to shine.

“A Different Man” is a singular movie. Schimberg digs deep to examine the skin-deep notions of attractiveness, and the effect of beauty on the eye of the beholder.

Part screwball comedy, part fight for survival, “Anora” is a triumph of controlled chaos. As in his earlier films, “Tangerine,” “The Florida Project” and “Red Rocket,” director Sean Baker keenly observes his characters with empathy and emotion in stories that examine money, class, and power. An insightfully made look at the wealth divide, with elements of suspense and comedy, it never fails to entertain.

“Better Man,” the biopic of Take That singer-turned-solo superstar Robbie Williams is a sex, drugs and British Pop story given an audacious treatment by “The Greatest Showman” director Michael Gracey. A surreal mix of “Behind the Music” and “Planet of the Apes,” it is a raw portrayal of the singer’s vulnerabilities and foibles in which he’s rendered throughout as a CGI monkey. No explanations are offered, and none are needed. Whether it’s a comment on the performing monkey nature of his work, or his ever-evolving emotional state, or whatever, it’s a startling and surprisingly effective gimmick in a wildly entertaining film.

The flirty, intimate and indulgent “Challengers” is a ménage à trois of ever shifting power games, mind games and tennis gameplay in which the power dynamics are batted back-and-forth, just like in a real tennis match.

There are no monsters or supernatural aspects in “Civil War,” but make no mistake, this is a horror film. The horrors of war are detailed in a visceral and chaotic way but it is the idea of a societal collapse that haunts.

“Conclave” has a hushed, restrained feel, but even though the characters all carry bibles as they walk the ecclesiastical halls, director Edward Berger understands this story is more pulpy thriller than holy book.

If the word bombastic took steroids it might come close to describing the R-rated “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Filled with fan service, it’s a good time, even if the experience of watching it sometimes feels like being on the inside of a blender set to puree.

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a high-octane apocalyptic tale with a fierce Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth as a charismatic warlord, that features action scenes that’ll make your eyes pop out of their sockets.

“The Greatest Night in Pop” doesn’t reinvent the music documentary wheel, but it is more than a star-studded episode of I Love the 80s as it vividly captures the remarkable effort and magic that went into the recording of We Are the World. 

Make no mistake, “Hey, Viktor!” is a comedy, first and foremost, and a raunchy one at that, but as it works its way to the end, it careens through a dysfunctional journey of self-discovery. 

“Hit Man” is a rom com and a caper comedy with some thrilling twists, anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances from Glen Powell and Adria Arjona.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is jam packed with big ideas and even bigger action scenes but feels intimate because of its emotional content.

A closer look at the remastered “Let It Be,” free from the furor of the break-up that coloured the 1970 release, reveals the shared joy of creation.

Romance and ‘roid rage collide in “Love Lies Bleeding,” a pulpy romp that is a bloody and brutal twist on the neo noir that harkens back to films like “Wild at Heart” and early Coen bros.

Despite a title that suggests a 1990s teen comedy, “My Old Ass” is a surreal coming-of-age story that stays anchored to reality with natural, heartfelt performances and a great deal of humor.

“Nosferatu” will be categorized as a horror film, and there are elements of gore, death and the unnerving auditory experience of hearing Count Orlock drain his victims, but it is an old-school horror movie that aims to unnerve its audience with just a few jump scares and no vats of fake blood. Eggers conveys terror with the film’s atmosphere of dread and depiction of madness, decay and unrelenting, elemental evil

“The Piano Lesson” is crisply complex, a tangle of emotion, the paranormal and family dynamics, with characters so carefully written each of them could be the star of their own story.

Younger audience members should enjoy the characters and the animation in “Robot Dreams,” but there is a depth to the story that will strike adults differently.

Because the uplift and empathy on display is such a departure for a prison movie, it would be easy to be cynical about a movie like “Sing Sing.” But it is impossible to deny the crowd-pleasing universal story of the redemptive power of art and community.

Clever and subversive, “Strange Darling” is an expertly made exercise in nihilism. What begins as a standard serial killer flick soon widens and deepens to become a thought provoking, provocative rethink of the whole genre.

“The Substance” goes on a bit too long, but director Coralie Fargeat’s gruesome vision, and the finale’s ankle-deep bloodbath, is a thing of terrible beauty.

“Suze” is a funny, never-judge-a-book-by-its-cover dramedy, that succeeds because of its engaging lead performances and in the way it presents a platonic relationship based on mutual respect.

“Thelma” is something you don’t see very often, a thriller starring a 93-year-old action hero. The fantastic June Squibb, in the lead role, may not exactly be Ethan Hunt, but she’s more endearing and delightful than Jack Ryan and Jason Bourne combined.

A mixture of nostalgia and hard-edged reality, of bittersweet poetry and heartfelt relationships, “We Grown Now” is a nuanced look at the ties that bind and their importance, even when those ties begin to fray.

Part rom com and part essay on what lingers after we’re gone, “We Live in Time” is a five-hankie tear-jerker fueled by the intimate and charismatic performances of its leads Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield.

The animated “The Wild Robot” will put you in the mind of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and WALL-E, but carves out its own, unique, rewarding space andhas the makings of a classic.

THE GREATEST NIGHT IN POP: 3 ½ STARS. “Check your ego at the door.”

If a bomb dropped on A&M Recording Studios in Hollywood on January 28, 1985, the Billboard charts may never have recovered. Save for superstars Prince and Madonna, the entirety of American pop royalty, 46 performers in total, gathered to check their egos at the door, and record “We Are the World,” the American answer to Bob Geldof’s supergroup charity single “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”

The song became the fastest-selling U.S. pop single in history, selling 20 million copies, and raising tens-of-millions for humanitarian aid under the umbrella of United Support of Artists for Africa (USA for Africa). A new documentary called “The Greatest Night in Pop,” now streaming on Netflix, takes us behind the scenes of the historic recording session.

In the opening third of the film, director Bao Nguyen sets the stage, “Behind the Music” style, using archival footage and new talking head interviews with the major players, to teleport the viewer back to the heady days of the original Macintosh personal computer and when “Purple Rain” made Prince the first artist to score a number one song, album and movie at the same time in North America.

Music icon and activist Harry Belafonte noted the success of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” to raise awareness and funds to fight famine in Africa, and put into motion the idea that would become “We Are the World.” In short order, fundraiser and music agent Ken Kragen came on board, raided his Rolodex, and brought together Lionel Ritchie, Michael Jackson and producer Quincy Jones to create a song to be sung by an all-star choir.

From the writing of the tune and the machinations involved in recruiting the a-list talent, made somewhat easier by scheduling the session after the American Music Awards ceremony when virtually the entire music industry was in Los Angeles for the event, to the placement of the microphones and Jones’s famous “Check your ego at the door” sign, Nguyen breezes through the events leading up to the actual recording.

It is a straightforward setting of the scene, that leads into the remarkable footage taken on the night, as some of the most famous people in the world came together to learn and record a song while also shooting the music video that would accompany the release.

It’s here the documentary becomes something more than an episode of “I Love the ‘80s.” The footage unveils the effort, the raw talent and spirit of camaraderie among the legends, who almost immediately becomes starstruck fans, asking their idols for autographs in between takes and expressing shyness about singing in front of music legends like Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.

There are funny moments—Cyndi Lauper’s many necklaces are identified as the strange sound ruining take after take—some unexpected ones—Bob Dylan’s vocal insecurity, for instance—and touching scenes of the artists overcome by emotion, including Diana Ross who cried when it was all done. “I don’t want this to be over,” she said as equipment is packed up around her.

At the helm is Jones. To manage the talent, the egos and insecurity of a roomful of superstars, Huey Lewis notes, “You gotta be more than a great musician, you have to be a psychiatrist,” and it is remarkable to watch Jones mollycoddle, push and prod this group. He knows what he wants and always seems to know how to get it. It’s a remarkable peak into the work of a virtuoso.

“The Greatest Night in Pop” is an exercise in nostalgia and certainly doesn’t reinvent the music documentary form, but the work of the collected musicians on that one special night remains as inspiring today as it was thirty-nine years ago.