Sing Street (2016)
Directed by John Carney
A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.
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But their music is catchy, and Carney has a lot of fun with the teens' homemade music videos, including an elaborate "Back to the Future"-inspired number.
Meanwhile he and his buddies will create a succession of amusingly period-appropriate tunes (actually written by Carney and Gary Clark) that culminate at a school dance which Conor imagines as “Back to the Future”-style shindig where his dreams come true.
That last number is where the movie soars highest, because it becomes the music video that Conor imagines for the song, a Back to the Future-inspired 1950s sock hop with Sing Street in burgundy tuxedos on the stage and choreographed dancers on the floor of their gym.
Whenever Carney’s shooting all-instrument performances or closed-door songwriting sessions, his film comes alive; there’s maybe no filmmaker working today better at capturing the joy of a rehearsal space, to say nothing of the wish-fulfillment swell he brings to a late, Back To The Future-inspired fantasy sequence.
They peak with a marvelous fantasy interlude in which a dismal rehearsal blossoms in Conor's mind into a Back to the Future-inspired 1950s American prom scene.
Con claras referencias a “Almost Famous”, “Say Anything”, y a las mencionadas “Once” y “Begin Again” (incluso a “Back to the Future”), “Sing Street” nos demuestra por qué la música es perfecta para expresar frustraciones y esperanzas.
John Carney, the writer-director of Once, returns with a valentine to '80s pop and the Irish kids who embraced it.
John Carney (who also made Once) has a lighter touch and also a greater sense of depth and poignancy.
His debut film, the raw and aching Once, features Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová as two lonely people making music together to express the emotions they can’t voice to each other.
John Carney’s Sundance-originating and technically (very) low-key Once became an independent sensation then, and has been enjoying an extended shelf life ever since (thanks to its transition to the Broadway stage), as well as a secure legacy in the catalog of musical cinema.
Switching to movies, Carney won acclaim in 2006 with “Once.”
A note of interest: Adam Levine, who acted in writer/director John Carney's "Begin Again", sings "Go Now" in this film.
The follow-up acts of its renowned writer-director—which include the sweet yet syrupy musical Begin Again starring Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley—never quite hit all the right high notes Once did, however.
“Once” and “Begin Again” are two of my all-time favorite films.
Irish writer-director John Carney has a singular gift for telling romantic, personal stories about musicians, as showcased in his delightful 2007 debut Once and his underrated, but equally wonderful follow-up Begin Again.
As with "Once" and Carney's follow-up, "Begin Again," much of the story and emotion of "Sing Street" is told through the songs.
Carney’s more visibly commercial 2013 film Begin Again was initially called Can A Song Save Your Life?, and the plot is one long series of affirmations around that question.
Lukas Moodysson’s euphoric 2013 We Are the Best! was more honest in this regard, showing youthful music-making as the phase it so often is.
But it just as closely resembles Lukas Moodysson’s winning 2013 Swedish drama We Are the Best!, about a trio of 13-year-old Stockholm girls who become a punk group largely to irritate some older boys, and then find that the genre’s built-in explosive rebellion expresses something they were missing in their lives.
Putting together the band has the naive enthusiasm reminiscent of the punk-rock girls in the 2013 Swedish film "We Are the Best!".
The example of the anarchic British icons is also what motivated the dorky teenage heroines of “We Are the Best!” to take the stage; Carney’s pic merits comparison with Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 gem in many respects, though a battle-of-the-bands showdown between their respective collectives would certainly be the most welcome way to weigh the films up against each other.
In this regard, Sing Street reminded me of an Irish-flavored We Are the Best!, a 2014 Swedish film about 13-year-old girls forming a punk band — only with better music and more emotional pull.
It lacks the wallop of Stuart Murdoch's "God Help the Girl" and the reckless abandon of "We Are the Best!," but the palpable sincerity of Carney's personal vision allows his musical to spin a fresh melody from a mess of familiar beats.
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Sing Street flaunts its influences rather proudly: There’s a touch of Rushmore, a sprinkle of Freaks and Geeks, a large dose of Almost Famous, and, inevitably, a bit of The Commitments, Alan Parker’s 1991 film about another budding Irish band.
The character of Brendan functions much as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lester Bangs did in Almost Famous; he provides mottos (“Rock and roll is a risk”), keen insights (which Conor then recites verbatim to others), and education (he hands him key albums and insists, “This is school.”).
Con claras referencias a “Almost Famous”, “Say Anything”, y a las mencionadas “Once” y “Begin Again” (incluso a “Back to the Future”), “Sing Street” nos demuestra por qué la música es perfecta para expresar frustraciones y esperanzas.
He's that Phillip Seymour Hoffman from Almost Famous kind of guy that just never left home.
A beautiful amalgam of “ Almost Famous ,” and “ Say Anything ,” with a hint of “ Once ,” John Carney is again at his top conveying a musical drama centered on more impoverished characters.
The film is imbued with music philosophy, like a Nick Hornby book or Cameron Crowe movie circa Almost Famous, or rather like a John Carney movie.
The film, which occasionally recalls Wes Anderson's Rushmore, is too effervescent to summon the sense of miraculous camaraderie contained in Carney's breakthrough feature, 2007's Once, but returning to Dublin after the underwhelming New York adventure of 2013's Begin Again has renewed him.
Sing Street flaunts its influences rather proudly: There’s a touch of Rushmore, a sprinkle of Freaks and Geeks, a large dose of Almost Famous, and, inevitably, a bit of The Commitments, Alan Parker’s 1991 film about another budding Irish band.
The mix of music and kitchen sink drama, plus Irishness, might make The Commitments the obvious comparator, but think more in the vein of Son Of Rambow, with music instead of movies.
There’s a touch of Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind or Garth Jennings’s Son of Rambow in the band’s attempts to reproduce the high-gloss sheen of Russell Mulcahy’s pop videos in a Dublin backstreet, armed only with a silk scarf, a cowboy outfit and an abundance of eyeliner.
If anything, it’s even better than The Commitments because it doesn’t go in for the slick manipulation associated with that film’s director, Alan Parker.
Sing Street has drawn plenty of comparison to Alan Parker’s 1991 feature The Commitments, about a different group of working-class Dubliners who form a band.
All it takes is one sequence that feels pulled together from everything from The Blues Brothers to The Commitments (the spirit of the latter hovering over this more innocent film like a funny, drunk uncle) and presto, Conor’s got his band.
Because of this setting, it’s been compared to Alan Parker’s The Commitments , but it’s nowhere near as gritty.
The story plays like a charming junior version of “The Commitments,” following the group as dreams come true, wishes are fulfilled and they actually become a good, unknown band.
Sing Street flaunts its influences rather proudly: There’s a touch of Rushmore, a sprinkle of Freaks and Geeks, a large dose of Almost Famous, and, inevitably, a bit of The Commitments, Alan Parker’s 1991 film about another budding Irish band.
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Con claras referencias a “Almost Famous”, “Say Anything”, y a las mencionadas “Once” y “Begin Again” (incluso a “Back to the Future”), “Sing Street” nos demuestra por qué la música es perfecta para expresar frustraciones y esperanzas.
A beautiful amalgam of “ Almost Famous ,” and “ Say Anything ,” with a hint of “ Once ,” John Carney is again at his top conveying a musical drama centered on more impoverished characters.
Then Sing Street, the outfit from Sing Street, could take its rightful place alongside the Rutles (Neil Innes and Eric Idle’s brilliant parallel-universe Beatles); Sex Bob-Omb (whose songs were by Beck) from Scott Pilgrim Vs the World; the Juicy Fruits (a Beach Boys send-up) from Phantom of the Paradise; the Carrie Nations (nee The Kelly Affair) from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; and, of course, Spinal Tap, whose “Big Bottom” eclipses much of the genre it was supposed to be spoofing.