CMJ 2010, New York’s annual music festival is about to kick-off — it runs October 19-23 — and while there’s been a film presence at the event for a few years now, this season’s line-up might be the strongest ever.
Arguably that’s because of the appearance of Ed Zwick’s “Love And Other Drugs” starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway. And strangely enough, it appears that the appearance will be the U.S. premiere — the much more prestigious AFI Film Festival in Hollywood does not get the film until November 14 (the film opens in regular release on November 24).
Other notable films at the festival include the Bruce Springsteen documentary, “The Promise: Darkness on the Edge of Town,” which recently made its debut at the Toronto Int’l Film Festival to much acclaim. Also, a new Fishbone documentary entitled, “Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone” (the band has had an interesting history including a guitarist that was recruited into a cult that they tried to rescue in the late ’90s) narrated by Laurence Fishburne, and featuring appearances by Flea, Ice-T, Gwen Stefani, Perry Farrell, Bob Forrest, Branford Marsalis and George Clinton. Can’t say we care for their more metal years, but the band meant a lot to us in their early days. Also of interest is the Serge Gainsbourg doc “Gainsbourg & His Girls” which is seen through the eyes of many of his sexual conquests muses and admirers including Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, Vanessa Paradis, Francoise Hardy and his daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg.
There’s also a music doc about Imogen Heap, the film, “Passenger Side” which includes a great soundtrack with songs by Wilco, Leonard Cohen, Dinosaur Jr, Evan Dando, and and the picture “Son of Morning” which stars Danny Glover, Lorraine Bracco, Jamie-Lynn Sigler and features music by Cold War Kids, Airborne Toxic Event, the Bravery, Andrew Bird, and more. (full line-up here)
Recent music docs of interest that are unfortunately missing include the Henry Nilsson doc, “Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?” (trailer)*, the Feist documentary, “Look at What the Light Did Now”, and the recent film about the venerable Scottish post-rockers Mogwai, “Burning” (trailer). Guys, we could curate this in our sleep if you need a hand. 🙂 CMJ runs October 19 -23
*yeah, some of these have come out already, that’s fine, they were in tiny release and more music fans would love to see them, we’re sure.
