Though some forget, rock and roll always has been about rising against the system – about giving voice to dissatisfaction and unruly desire. But it’s also been wildly male-dominated, as if everyone tacitly agreed that guitars were extensions of phalluses that woman had no business strapping on. The result? There may be nothing more fundamentally rock and roll than a woman defying the powers-that-be by wielding an axe while howling her guts out. In the last few years, some of these goddesses have penned memoirs. Raw, smart, and stirring, they’re the stuff of which adaptation dreams are made. Sure enough, a Showtime series based on Patti Smith’s Just Kids is already in the works. Smith, who is co-writing and creating the series, has said she wants Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart to play artist Robert Mapplethorpe and herself, respectively. (Given the former “Twilight” dream team’s recent edgy work, it’s not as bad a call as it may seem.) Here are five other recent lady rocker memoirs that would make amazing biopics, with the stars and directors who could make them happen. Continue Reading →
Archive | Film Matters
All Hail the Heroine’s Journey
It’s a special sort of movie that asks audiences to tag along on an extended trek by foot, as this month’s “A Walk in the Woods” does. An adaptation of Bill Bryson’s eponymous memoir, it stars Robert Redford as travel writer Bill Bryson, hiking the Appalachian Trail while reconnecting with an old friend, Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte). But the walkabout film is actually a beloved genre – perhaps because there is nothing more Hollywood than a hero’s (or heroine’s!) journey. Consider these other walkabout features, many of which, interestingly, are also literary adaptations. I’m deliberately omitting the “Lord of the Rings” and “Harry Potter” films (they get enough air time!) but what else do you think deserves mention?
“The Wizard of Oz” (1939)
Sure, “The Wizard of Oz” is another film that gets plenty of air time. But when was the last time you actually watched this adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s children’s novel? Dorothy (the great Judy Garland) and her ragtag crew get an awfully good workout as they wander through the emerald and straw-hued labyrinth of her exceptionally vivid subconscious. They even manage to warble a few catchy tunes along the way. See also: “The Wiz” (1978). Disco cities, disco soundtrack, young MJ, and D. Ross as Dottie? Um, yes please. Continue Reading →
A Gently Grown-up Film: ‘Learning to Drive’
“Learning to Drive,” about a middle-aged Sikh driving instructor and his middle-aged student, is a satisfyingly grownup movie. Its stakes are gentle but real. Its characters behave decently yet feel strongly, and their parallel worlds are unfair if occasionally joyous. For this reason but not this reason alone, this is a late-summer film to see, despite its pedestrian premise. (Puns are an occupational hazard when discussing this topic.)
The luminous Patricia Clarkson is rock-star book critic Wendy, whose enviable NYC intelligentsia lifestyle is in tatters since Ted (Jake Weber), her relatively unsuccessful husband, left her for a colleague, and her daughter, Tasha (Grace Gummer), took off for a remote Vermont commune. A lifelong city kid, Wendy realizes she’s going to have to learn to drive if she’s ever going to see Tasha again, so she enlists the services of Darwan (Ben Kingsley), an overworked Indian immigrant who drives a taxi by night and teaches driving by day. Continue Reading →