Director and musician Warren Fischer discusses his latest short film “The Serena Variations,” the suspense drama that melds music and mind blowing visuals to explore the artist’s condition. A musician and music aficionado himself, Fischer discusses his short.
Selected to run at the 2024 Raindance Film Festival, director Warren Fischer’s “The Serena Variations” is a very powerful and dynamic look at music and the artists pursuit of perfection. Even if the perfection is personal, director Fischer peeks in to how much an artist is willing to sacrifice, even if it’s their own soul. Although a lot of the film’s setting and aesthetics are meant mainly for symbolism, the special effects and sound design still allow for an uneasy and unnerving experience.
Now Streaming Exclusively on MAX. “Chromatica” is now Available.
After the successful push of the Eras tour with Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga followed in kind with her own pretty raucous concert film. Titled “Chromatica Ball,” Gaga, the jack of many trades, wows with two hours of some of her biggest hits, while also delivering on a very entertaining visual show filled with excellent set design and some fun costumes (including custom pieces from Gareth Pugh, Alexander McQueen, and Vex Latex). While I wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore fan of Lady Gaga per se, I do admire her talents, and think she’s a very entertaining singer and artist altogether.
Will Smith, Dru Hill et al for “Wild, Wild West”
With the advent of music videos going completely out of style with introduction of music streaming, a long time element of music fandom died. While there are still plenty of music videos, they no longer make or break the popularity of a single or music album. One of the best things about being a movie and music fan is that there was almost always a music video attached to the movie itself. Whether it was the movie’s theme song, or a music video directly reflecting the movie content, there was always a guarantee of a music video for a movie.
Whether it was Chad Kroeger’s “Hero,” Dokken’s “Dream Warriors,” Space Jam’s “I Believe I Can Fly,” Ray Parker’s “Ghostbusters,” or 45 Grave’s “Party Time,” there was a massive plethora of movie related music videos.
Here are five of my absolute favorites.
Having gone viral lately for all the wrong reasons, Amazon and Jennifer Lopez recently released a documentary meant to chronicle the making of Jennifer Lopez’s cinematic iteration of her new music album “This is Me…Now: A Love Story.” “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” is filled with staged scenes, obviously scripted “candid” moments, and a ton of promotion of the new album and album tracks.
It does a great job promoting the new album and works double time in JLO’s efforts to rebrand herself as a “self-made” simple girl from the Bronx, a pigeonhole she’s evaded for years. Suffice to say that documentary is filled with silliness and absurdity. This is only a few of those moments.
“The Greatest Love Story Never Told” is now Streaming on Amazon Prime.
Now Officially Available to Stream on Youtube and Screening in Theaters.
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers’ Oscar nominated documentary is a wonderful look at music and the human connection it can provide. In a world where less and less human contact is being explored, music is one of the last bastions we have where we’re capable of not only connecting with one another mentally, but emotionally, and sometimes physically. “The Last Repair Shop” is about the fragility and art of music and the instruments that make them.
Streaming on Amazon Prime, Paramount Plus, and Hulu.
“Staying Alive” has always been a notorious movie that always came with the legacy of being one of the worst movies ever made, and one of the worst sequels, barnone. It’s hard to achieve a feat as high as “Saturday Night Fever” which wasn’t just a movie about disco music, but was also a wonderful coming of age drama. With star John Travolta taking any role he could in the seventies and eighties, “Staying Alive” is that classic case of both being incapable of catching lightning in a bottle twice, and a studio not knowing what made their first film so great, in the first place.