It's an Amazing Summer at the Movies for Music Lovers
Along with all the superheroes, spies, and dinosaurs making noise at megaplexes this summer, there also happens to be a virtually unprecedented explosion of musically themed films now playing or coming very soon.
It all kicked off with the riveting, “authorized” tell-all documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, which has not only been called “the most intimate rock doc ever” but which Jack Black personally told us was the best rock doc ever, and we’d trust that guy to school us in rock docs. (Another Nirvana-themed doc, Soaked in Bleach, focuses on Cobain’s death through the eyes of a private investigator and hits theaters and Vimeo on Demand now.) Shortly after Heck arrived in theaters, the equally as spellbinding — and at times, the equally as difficult to watch — Amy Winehouse doc Amy premiered to tears and cheers at Cannes (it opens in theaters July 3). On June 26, Netflix will premiere the Sundance doc What Happened Miss Simone?, about the life and times of one of Winehouse’s biggest influences, jazz and soul singer Nina Simone.
Watch the trailer for ‘Montage of Heck’:
Meanwhile at the box office, a capella singing powers one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest hit movie franchises, with Pitch Perfect 2 (which also spawned the hit single, “Flashlight”) already well over $150 million in greenbacks. Love and Mercy — starring Paul Dano and John Cusack as, respectively, younger and older versions of Beach Boy Brian Wilson — is looking primed to be a sleeper indie hit after a rock-solid opening this past weekend in limited release.
Later this summer, Meryl Streep will be the fictional and titular rocker in the Diablo Cody-penned Ricki and the Flash (Aug. 7), and odds are she gets an Oscar nomination… or at the very least a Golden Globe nomination. We’ll also get a very real look at the rise of the groundbreaking gangta rap group NWA in the Ice Cube- and Dr. Dre-produced biopic Straight Outta Compton (Aug. 14). And speaking of ‘90s hip-hop, the Sundance breakout dramedy Dope (June 19) has all kinds of affinity for old-school acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, and Naughty by Nature. There’s also Fresh Dressed, a documentary about the history of hip-hop fashion, dropping June 26, and Shake the Dust, a Nas-produced doc about b-boys in surprising corners of the globe (now in theaters and on VOD) that also includes tracks by Talib Kweli and Common.
Watch the trailer for ‘Dope’:
EDM lovers will get to hear their flavor of beats blaring from the big screen in the Zac Efron-starring We Are Your Friends (Aug. 28), which looks like Entourage for DJs. And even sooner we’ll have the festival darling and French import Eden (June 19), about a crew of DJs who came out France’s rave scene in the ‘90s, with a soundtrack featuring the likes of Daft Punk, The Orb, and Frankie Cutlass.
And of course let’s not forget the Coma-Doof Warrior, the flame-throwing guitar guy that’s still slaying it in theaters in Mad Max: Fury Road.
Here’s a playlist we’ve curated with some selections from this summer’s music-heavy movie lineup.
