Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese (2019) - Movie Review

After looking at the Beyonce concert documentary, and thinking on and off this month about The Irishman, I feel like I need to give Martin Scorsese another look-over. With how much he’s dominated the larger conversation about where the cinema industry is going, and how vindicated his statements have grown in such a short time (the artistic quality of the MCU is still arguable, but its effect on the industry isn't), I don’t want my last thoughts about the man this decade to be filled with disappointment and a want to highlight what has made the man so enduringly fascinating as a storyteller. So let’s look at the other movie he made this year, a documentary about Bob Dylan’s legendary Rolling Thunder Revue.

Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (2019) - Movie Review

With how many new and returning faces have dotted the cinematic landscape over the past decade, pinning down any singular filmmaker as being the definitive artist of the 2010’s sounds like a headache and a half. In the realm of popular music, however, that question is far simpler. Sure, there are a few contenders for that crown on the pop stage like Taylor Swift, but none of them can hold a candle to the breadth of musical talent and utter ubiquity than one Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.

Her paradigm shift into becoming an album artist in 2013 somehow managed to upgrade her already-enviable place in the spotlight, pushing her beyond her girl group/showbiz upbringing origins and revealing her as one of pop’s most singular artists. But the moment that truly confirmed her place in pop history was her performance at Coachella 2018, the setting for Beyoncé’s step into the director’s chair to capture this truly important moment. And man, does she bring a whole new shine to the event.

Backstreet Boys: Show 'Em What You're Made Of (2015) - Movie Review

Given the rather ill-fated step that this entire blog started on, boy bands now have an added bizarre undercurrent on top of my already rather vocal disdain for them: I may hate them in general, but they are at least partially responsible for me taking my obsessive cinematic habits and turning them into something mildly useful. So, when news reached me that a documentary was coming out based on one of the biggest boy bands of all time, the Backstreet Boys, I felt some weird form of obligation to check it out beyond my compulsions. But, with my mother in tow to provide cultural context when needed as she grew up around the phenomenon, was it worth seeing? Like, at all?

One Direction: Where We Are - The Concert Film (2014) - Movie Review

I don’t hate all boy bands; I myself have a certain affinity for 5ive (Everybody Get Up is a little too catchy for me to ignore) and even some songs by N*SYNC. That said, though, I have ears and a brain that would even scrutinize my baby brothers’ crayon drawings: I know emotional manipulation when I hear it and that is the crux of what every boy band does. They are tools of record companies to exploit feelings of Lisztomania in teenage girls (and some women… and some teenage boys, come to think of it) through songs with lyrics that are vague enough that they could apply to just about any girl listening, and yet specific enough to latch on to some minor part of said girl’s psyche due to basic probability (You drop a brick out of a plane, and it will hit something eventually). It’s almost clinically fascinating to see the effect boy bands can have on people.