One of the greatest voices of music has also one of the most tragic stories is the documentary for today’s Genre-ary. Whitney Houston had so many struggles in her short and successful life, from drugs and pressures of her life. The 2018 documentary Whitney was on Netflix (though it is leaving at the end of the month).
Filmmaker Kevin Macdonald used archival footage, some great performances and interviews to give a picture of Whitney Houston’s life.
The music of Whitney Houston is amazing, and that comes through in this documentary, although there could be more about the music. However, the story of what happens and what led to her untimely death is very tough. The relationships in Whitney’s world was shown as a major part of her downfall. That included her marriage to Bobby Brown and the difficult connection with her father.
It was hard to watch the two sides of Whitney Houston that we saw in the doc. It was such a struggle in her life and how the events took such a toll on her.
It is a difficult doc to watch, even if there may not be anything new revealed of her story. Putting it in one spot like this is powerful.
Today’s Genre-ary was an Academy Award winner from 2016. Amy is the story of British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse.
I knew only a little bit of Amy Winehouse. I am unfamiliar with her music, but I did know of her death in 2011 and I had heard of this documentary from A24 when it was making the rounds in 2015.
Constructed by home movies, archival footage and personal interviews, Amy paints a picture of a remarkably talented woman who struggled with the traps of fame and the dangers of excess that, at times, went hand and hand with it.
Watching this tragedy unfold in this documentary, I was struck with the idea that Amy Winehouse never truly knew who she was or that she was always afraid of the truth and she spent plenty of time running from it by the drug use or the alcohol. It seemed as if there were two powerful men in her life whom she adored, her father Mitch and her husband Blake Fielder, and both of them appeared to take advantage of her celebrity. The scenes of her father bringing a camera crew to an island hideaway with Amy was repulsive.
Amy never felt comfortable as a celebrity. The constant imagery of her moving through a pool of paparazzi with cameras clicking away is one of the enduring depiction of this doc.
Another is the amazing strength of Amy’s voice and her songwriting skills. The doc had all kinds of performances from recordings over her career with lyrics to the songs written on screen allowing the song to speak as much as the sadness surrounding much of her existance.
You know you’re something special when you can have legendry singer Tony Bennett end the documentary with the quote, “She was one of the truest jazz singers I ever heard. To me, she should be treated like Ella Fitzgerald, like Billie Holliday. She had the complete gift.”
Another ReMastered documentary on Netflix was today’s entry in the Genre-ary. This time, the ReMastered doc is focused on musician Sam Cooke.
Sam Cooke was a black musician who was gaining a lot of power during the 1960s through his amazing music and his desire to help bring about civil rights. Cooke was forming friendships with other powerful black men of the period including Cassius Clay, Malcom X and Jim Brown.
Sam Cooke’s murder was a mess. The story that was in 1964, Cooke picked up a woman and went crazy. She believed that she was about to be raped. Her story was that she grabbed his pants and took off. Cooke went after her and wound up being shot by the hotel manager. The trial was determined to be justifiable homicide.
Most of the people who had been interviewed in the documentary could not believe that this was truth. There was some speculation that there was a conspiracy behind this event as Sam Cooke was becoming a very powerful man and he had created a recoding studio that threatened the industry. The end certainly did not mesh with the the picture that we had been shown about Cooke.
We heard interviews from Smokey Robinson, Quincy Jones, Jim Brown, Dionne Warwick, Lou Adler, and Billy Davis.
The doc was interesting and engaging. It featured a person that I did not know much about and had a amazing, though way too short life.
Disney + is the home for tonight’s Genre-ary film, Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of The Dana Carvey Show.
According to IMDB, “this feature length documentary from director Josh Greenbaum (Becoming Bond, The Short Game) will take a fresh and irreverent look at the successes and humorous missteps of a show that brought together an amazing slew of future comedy giants before they were household names. Featuring interviews with Dana Carvey, Robert Smigel, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and more, the film will explore the creation of the show as the brainchild of two of Saturday Night Live’s most beloved alumni, the twists and turns of its brief life on air, and its legacy-one of stellar careers, lasting relationships, and an affirmation that in art, risks are always worth taking.”
The Dana Carvey Show was a sketch show on ABC that lasted just seven episodes. Dana Carvey was coming off the huge success of his time on Saturday Night Live and he was going to do a sketch show featuring a lot of counter-culture comedy.
The doc started with the creation of the show, and the hiring of the cast. The cast turned out to include Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, who would be major stars later. Robert Smigel, who was also the voice and creator of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, was one of the creative forces, along with Dana Carvey.
The doc was extremely funny as it had all of these comedians and performers speak on the reason this show collapsed and the process of making the show. You could tell that the creatives involved with The Dana Carvey Show really loved their time on the show, even if, in reflection, they understood what they were putting on the air was doomed from the start.
I was entertained by the memories and commentary of these funny people. It is a wonder that they failed so sensationally.
Today’s Genre-ary documentary I found on Netflix and it was a short doc about the time Johnny Cash was asked by President Richard Nixon to come and play at the White House.
The doc gave us some basic background on both Johnny Cash and on Richard Nixon. The Nixon section was specifically focused in on the Vietnam controversies among his presidency.
The doc talked about Nixon using the “Southern Strategy” that has been well documented in Presidential politics since the sixties when the south became more of a Republican stronghold instead of a consistent Democratic voters. It brought up how Nixon used some dog whistles to bring out the “Silent majority” to support the Republican party and create a nation of divisiveness. It was very connected to the present day politics and how it has its roots in this time frame.
The doc never went into too much detail about any of the sections, as it was just under an hour long.
It was interesting seeing how Johnny Cash was affected by his own trip to Vietnam and how he made some changes to the songs Nixon had requested Cash play at the White House. Both of the songs he asked for were songs that took shots at some of the marginalized people of the time, including hippies and those on Welfare.
I liked this doc, but I really believe it could have gone into much more details about the performance and about the two figures of American culture. It touched on a lot of the issues, but it did not go into enough depth.
I do enjoy a good documentary. I am going to have a list of top ten documentaries for the year. Nine of them are movie format and one is a weekly series. There were a lot of weekly series that intrigued me, but it is harder to fit those into the schedule than straight movies.
I am also going to officially announce here that in January, for the annual Genre-ary DailyView, where I watch a movie that I have not seen in a certain genre every day for the whole month. This is the third year for the Genre-ary (we have had sci-fi and musicals) and in 2025, the topic for Genre-ary is Documentaries. This starts on Wednesday, January 1st.
Best Documentary
Previous Winners: Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, My Scientology Movie, Tickled, Finding Neverland, Tiger King, The Beatles: Get Back, Lights & Magic, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Here are the top 10 docs of 2024.
#10. Elton John: Never Too Late. A look at Elton John’s life and his music. Found on Disney +.
#9. Blink. An emotional story of a family who had 3 out of 4 of their children who had a genetic disorder that would eventual lead them to lose their sight. Their family went on a trip across the planet to give the kids experiences they could always remember.
#8. Brats. I saw this on Hulu this year and it was all about the group of young actors from the 1980s called the Brat Pack and how that nomenclature affected their careers.
#7. Music by John Williams. Another Disney + doc on a famous figure, looking at the life of the iconic composer John Williams and all his amazing movie music.
#6. Bray Wyatt: Becoming Immortal. The WWE documentary on Bray Wyatt, who just passed away. The emotional doc spoke to his friends and his family, including brother Bo Dallas.
#5. Beatles ’64. Another Disney + doc, this time looking at the Beatles from 1964, the year they arrived in the United States.
#4. The Greatest Night in Pop. A Netflix doc that details the events of the night where the song “We Are the World” was recorded. Amazing footage from the actual night.
#3. The Jinx: Part Two. The one series on this list, and one that I considered to make the winner. I enjoyed this weekly series on MAX that followed the rest of the story of killer Robert Durst.
#2. Jim Henson Idea Man. This is the fifth doc from Disney + on this list. Ron Howard directed this documentary on the Muppet creator Jim Henson. Very emotional and a great look on one of the most creative men in entertainment.
#1. Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. The doc on Christopher Reeve is powerful, emotional, and shows us what a hero Chris Reeve was, before and after he played Superman.
Elton John is one of the greatest musicians from the 1970s and early ’80s, and there have been several versions about his life from A Life in Song to Rocketman. The latest Elton John documentary came to Disney + this month called Elton John: Never Too Late.
Fans of Elton John should love this documentary. The music is a highlight as they use some of his greatest songs as a soundtrack for the doc. There are moments in Elton John’s life that could have had more details developed within the doc.
Some of my own personal favorite parts of the doc included the section involving John Lennon, the details surrounding Elton John’s suicide attempt and his initial relationship with Bernie Taupin.
I also enjoyed how the doc used animated sections to visualize a series of interviews or tape recording that were used in the doc for the first time. Some of the pain from Elton John’s life was tough to hear and I appreciate how he was willing to go into the story for the doc.
I did enjoy the new song, ‘Never Too Late’ with Brandi Carlile, that played over the credits of the documentary.
This was an engaging documentary, but it could have gone into more depth than it did. However, it does touch on some things that are intriguing and the music is fantastic.
We added this category recently, but backtracked to award some previous films the award.
Movie Musicals
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Whiplash (2014), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), La La Land (2016), The Greatest Showman (2017), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), Rocketman (2019), Hamilton (2020), Tick, Tick… Boom! (2021), Matilda the Musical (2022), The Color Purple (2023)
We had some musicals in 2024. There was Piece by Piece, which was a musical documentary, in Lego format doing the life of Pharrell Williams. Moana 2 is a huge box office success, but, truthfully, the music just did not hit as well as the original. That’s what happens when you do not have Lin-Manuel Miranda doing your music. Speaking of Miranda, he is doing the music for the upcoming Mufasa film from Disney, and while that is probably going to be great, I do not think it will match this year’s winner. Joker: Folie à Deux was a disappointment in a lot of ways, and musically was one of them. They really did not take advantage of Lady Gaga. Mean Girls was very forgettable from way back in January. Emilia Perez was a powerful movie, but I can honestly say that much of the music in this film, I do not remember. I do not consider Bob Marley: One Love to be a musical, though I could mention it as an effective use of music.
2024 Movie Movie Musical of the Year:
Wicked
Yeah, this one was easy. This is a massive hit and a tremendous film. The rendition of “Defying Gravity” in this film is goosebump creating. Both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo were stunning with their voices and made this iconic Broadway play a must see movie…even as a Part 1. Could this be foreshadowing next year’s winner too?
There is a brand new documentary on Disney + that dropped today featuring the Beatles. There have been several docs about the Beatles over the last few years and this one looks specifically at the year 1964, the year the Beatles came to the shores of the USA.
Told through the perspective of many of the people who saw the Beatles during this time as well as several behind the scenes interviews with the Beatles themselves, Beatles ’64 is a documentary that will be loved by the fans of the Fab Four.
It was cool to see the images of the younger Beatles, before they found their way to the music of the later sixties.
The music of the doc was great. “Love Me Do,” “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “She Loves You,” “This Boy,” and “Roll Over Beethoven” were some of the songs we heard during the doc, including the performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
It is amazing that the Beatles have enough popularity even today to support yet another documentary focused on them. And that there is enough material on them to fill yet another entertaining doc.
We have another documentary for the 4F as I am on Hulu/Disney + watching Road Diary, following a recent return tour from Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Bruce Springsteen. I do not mind his music, but I am just not as familiar to it than I am in some other music. Because of this, I was not as filled with joy and wonder as some might be.
Having said that, there are some cool moments of watching how this band of musicians can come together after five years of inactivity and create a tour of American music.
Listening to the E Street Band discuss their music making as well as Bruce and his mastery of the form is interesting. I did not know that Steven Van Zandt was in the E Street Band. Van Zandt is a musician I had heard of and the only other musician I was aware of in the E Street Band was the late Clarence Clemons. It was intriguing to discover that Clemons’ nephew, Jake, replaced Clarence in the band.
I feel as if you are a Bruce Springsteen fan, this would be like candy to you. For me, it was an okay look at a powerful musician who I have had a healthy respect for over many years.
The first official movie in the Friday Fantastic Film Fest is one of the strangest documentaries you are ever going to see. This movie, Piece By Piece, is the biography of music producer Pharrell Williams, but it is told as a Lego movie style.
Huh?
Honestly, this is weird.
I am not that familiar with Pharrell Williams, outside of “Happy,” but the Lego part of the film is what attracted me to see this movie. I probably would not have watched a straight up movie with interviews centered around Pharrell, but the gimmick of the Legos drew me in.
The Lego animation was original and, at times, beautifully transcendent in Piece By Piece. Even times when it did not feel like it worked for the moment, the color and the imagination shone through.
Unfortunately, the story did not match the originality of the format. The story was basically just interviews and lacked that special oomph that the visuals provided throughout. I know it was a biography, but something that was so creativity special in one aspect, was fairly mundane in the other.
I enjoyed the music, even if it wasn’t my normal type of music. It worked for me it the bits in the film.
I found the most fascinating part of the film was the post-“Happy” stuff, how the creation of one of the biggest songs in recent memory caused a challenge for the artist in ways you would never have expected.
Overall, Piece By Piece is an interesting animated film that gives some insight into an artist that I did not know much about, but I just wish the story was told in a more outside the box manner, to match the visuals.
John Williams is one of the masters of film music. He has had more classic scores that exist in your head than practically any composer. From the music of Star Wars to Jaws to Schindler’s List to Raiders of the Lost Ark, the themes fill you with emotions every time. And each score provides something extra to each film, something that makes the film more than it was before.
This is why John Williams has been in such demand over the last fifty years. His music brings that final oomph to a film, and it does not matter what the genre is. John Williams is capable of delivering something magical.
This weekend saw the drop of a documentary featuring the iconic composer in a film entitled, perfectly, Music by John Williams, on Disney +.
The doc does touch upon his life and family, but most of the runtime is focused on the music and the films that he scored. We hear about John Williams’s thoughts from John Williams himself, as well as from his dear friend Steven Spielberg, whom was one of his most ardent supporters.
We hear from tons of people expounding on the amazing talents that John Williams would bring to their films. We saw Ron Howard, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Chris Columbus, Seth MacFarlane, James mangold, Kathleen Kennedy, Chris Martin and Itzhak Perlman all provide insight into their times working with Williams in whatever capacity they could give.
One of the more powerful moments was Kate Capshaw, wife of Steven Spielberg, describing when she and Steven went to hear the score for Schindler’s List, played by Williams on the piano, and how she began crying immediately.
The amazing footage throughout was awesome, much of it coming from Spielberg’s own recordings over the year. Being able to hear the words and the thoughts of Williams about the work that he had done is truly special. I will admit that seeing the scene from E.T. where the bike flies in front of the moon brought a few tears to my eyes. It provided us with so many memories from years of amazing work.
The doc is fairly straightforward, but if anyone deserves it, John Williams is it.
Whatcha gonna do, when Weird Al polkas all over you!!!!
Yes, EYG Hall of Famer Weird Al Yankovic is back with a brand new polka! The last time we had any recording by his weirdness was The Hamilton Polka in 2018. Al is back with his own level of insanity with some great songs in a polka medley.
I always wonder if I am going to know any of the songs in a polka medley since I am not as knowledgeable with recent pop hits, but there were a few here that I recognized.
Today is the 10 year anniversary of the last studio album Al released, “Mandatory Fun” and this polka celebrates that while blending together songs from the last several years into that new polka medley.
Wikipedia already had a full listing of the tracks inside Polkamania. Here they are:
It is a busy day today so I had to get the June Swoon 3 going early this morning and I had another Oscar winner on the list. This was the Oscar winner for Best Documentary Short and it was entitled The Last Repair Shop. I watched it on YouTube, but I see that it is available as well on Disney +. This is just over thirty five minutes long and is a joyous expression of love for music and for those for whom music has changed their lives.
The focus was on a instrument repair shop from Los Angeles that provided a service to the schools of the area to repair damaged or broken musical instruments for free. The film profiles four members of the shop: Dana Atkinson, Paty Moreno, Duane Michaels and Steve bagmanyan.
The film also had words from students who gave quick stories about how they wound up playing the instrument they played. The passion and the joy came through each child’s words as it helped us understand how important these musical instruments would be in their lives.
The stories were very emotional and compelling. The stories of the workers at the repair shop ranged from a man who an Armenian refugee from Azerbaijan to a woman who tried to give her children a better life in America only to struggle to a man who played on the same stage as Elvis Presley.
The film ended with a performance of a song called “The Alumni” which featured many of the voices that we heard during the film.
If you love music, or if you ever played an instrument, you will be inspired by this documentary short film. It is a love letter to music and those people who make it or allow other people to make it.
This was the question throughout the entire first episode of Bodkin, a series from Netflix featuring Will Forte as a podcaster and Siobhán Cullen as an investigative journalist whose editor insisted on her accompanying Forte on his podcast to get her out of the way.
IMDB says, “A group of podcasters set out to investigate the mysterious disappearance of three strangers in an idyllic Irish town. But when they start to pull the strings, they find a story much bigger and stranger than they could have imagined.”
Bodkin is a dark comedy/thriller dealing with the disappearance of some people in the small Irish town of Bodkin. By the end of the first episode, I was intrigued enough to continue with this.
I definitely liked the actors. Both Siobhán Cullen and Will Forte were great and Robyn Cara as Forte’s investigator on his podcast was good too. The Irish people of the town were very quirky and mysterious.
I did not find anything downright funny, but oddball worked as a descriptor. The curiosity of what exactly was going on when Cullen’s character Dove was struck by a car was definitely interesting.
With some open spots on the schedule for TV shows, I think the seven-episode series on Netflix will work nicely.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 