They Shot the Piano Player is an animated docdrama that, ultimately, failed to connect with me. But, to credit filmmakers Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba (co-directors of the Oscar-nominated animated film Chico & Rita), the movie’s efforts are certainly not wasted.
By: Trevor Chartrand In this feature directorial debut of Thyrone Tommy, Learn to Swim focuses on the failing relationship between a stubborn jazz saxophone player Dezi (Thomas Antony Olajide) and an up-and-coming singer, Selma (Emma Ferreira). The film plays with time and takes place both before and after the relationship has failed. I hesitate to compare the film to 2009’s 500 Days of Summer, simply because Learn to Swim takes a much more sophisticated, and…
Jazz doc A Tuba to Cuba has a structure that’s similar to the musical genre’s free-flowing essence – the film is informed and pleasant to take in, but it’s also suspiciously unkempt.
The documentary form of filmmaking has been around since the very beginning of the moving image. In well over a century, it has been transformed in a variety of ways, leading to some of the most innovative cinema. This is exactly why it is always so frustrating when someone takes an interesting individual or event and makes a documentary that takes nothing from this history, instead opting to utilize the same old cookie-cutter style of…
Pardon me it this sounds silly, but I Called Him Morgan – a music documentary about jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan – has too much music. The music itself isn’t bad, but director/producer Kasper Collin has included so much of it that the tunes actually engulf the rest of this otherwise adequate film.
Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise, Boyhood) stars as east-coast jazz legend Chet Baker in Robert Budreau’s biographical drama Born to Be Blue, which focuses on the musician’s comeback during the 1960s and his struggle with addiction. The film, which was written, directed and produced by Budreau, chooses to examine a specific period of Baker’s career rather than the entirety of his career – a decision that results in a more intimate experience than one might expect…
By: Addison Wylie I’m all for art taking different forms. Art doesn’t necessarily always have to contain deeper meanings. In the case of NY Export: Opus Jazz, having the intentions of emulating a classier time of musical cinema in a modern world is perfectly fine. However, when the featured silenced dancers show this much talent and capability as they do in NY Export: Opus Jazz, it’s hard not to expect something more than “just dancing”…