A personal journal of film and documentary reviews, and reviews of anything else that intrigues me.
Australian and New Zealand Films
Mitchell Hawkes, “Heavenly Pop Hits: the Flying Nun Story” (2002) A long overdue and welcome survey of a particular music scene at a particular time in…
Latin American Films (non-Spanish / non-Portuguese)
Iara Lee, “Modulations, Cinema for the Ear” (1998) Billed as a history of electronic music and music technology in the 20th century. “Modulations …” turns out to…
Australian and New Zealand Films
Matthew Bate, “What the Future Sounded Like” (2006) Here be a good little documentary about the synthesiser company Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd, formed by British composers…
Torstein Grude, “Satan Rides the Media” / “Satan rir media” (1998) Focussing on the sensational murder of Norwegian black metal musician Oystein Aarseth aka Euronymous by…
French and French-language Films
Eric Darmon, Franck Mallet, “Pierre Henry, or the Art of Sounds” (2006) A so-so documentary about the French experimental music pioneer, Pierre Henry, who with his mentor…
Matt O’Casey, “Queen: Days of our Lives (Part 2)” Contrary to my expectations, knowing something of the band’s history, I found the second part of the…
Matt O’Casey, “Queen: Days of our Lives (Part 1)” (2011) To mark the 40th anniversary of a beloved British rock music institution, the BBC made this…
Mats Lundberg, “Black Metal Satanica” (2008) This documentary promised initially to be a fairly in-depth investigation of the Scandinavian black metal music scene and its agenda…
Pål Aasdal, Martin Ledang “Once upon a time in Norway” (2007) This one-hour film is a straightforward blow-by-blow chronological account of the early career of Mayhem,…