Chasing the rock 'n' roll dream.
We know your watching time is limited. And the amount of things available to watch … is not. Looking for a movie? Nearly any movie ever made? It's probably streaming somewhere. That's a lot of movies. |
Below, we're suggesting two of them, the latest of our weekly double-feature recommendations. We think the movies will pair well — with each other and with you. |
Your weekly double feature: Garage rockers |
 | | From left, Chris Bannow, Will Brill, John Magaro and Jack Huston in a scene from "Not Fade Away."Barry Wetcher/Paramount Vantage |
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'Not Fade Away' and 'Sing Street' |
A few years after "The Sopranos" ended its run on HBO, the show's creator, David Chase, returned to the New Jersey for his first feature, another evocative tale of suburban unrest and familial strife. He even cast James Gandolfini as an abusive brute who terrorizes his wife and two children. But "Not Fade Away" (2012) faded away quickly, grossing less than $1 million on fair-to-middling reviews, with some complaining that its ragged, diffuse storytelling style might have been better suited to television. |
Those critics were mistaken. Now streaming on Hulu, "Not Fade Away" is best received as a slice of life, capturing a moment in time when the British Invasion had reached American shores and a suburban Jersey boy could imagine a new cultural destiny for himself. John Magaro stars as Douglas Damiano, a ho-hum drummer and half-decent singer who lucks his way into a local band that is inspired by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but mostly plays covers at house parties. This quartet of never-wases brushes up against success, but the film is more interested in the particulars of time and place, with a terrific soundtrack (Steven Van Zandt, of "The Sopranos" and E Street Band fame, served as music supervisor) and an unforgettable ending. |
The mid-80s Dublin high-schoolers in "Sing Street" (2016) are inspired by British New Wave outfits like Duran Duran, the Jam and the Cure, but their musicianship lags much further behind their pop ambitions. The director John Carney loves to make films about musical collaboration ("Once," "Begin Again"), but his hero in "Sing Street" is a picked-on kid (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) who mostly wants to impress a girl, which is as classic a reason to start a band as any. As the band gets patched together and they start work on a music video, a certain creative magic takes hold and Carney's sweet, nostalgia-soaked period piece finds its groove along with them. SCOTT TOBIAS |
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