Tag: Bob Dylan

It’s Never Over,
Jeff Buckley

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 February 2026
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Jeff Buckley
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Director – Amy Berg – 2025 – US – Cert. 15 – 106m

***1/2

A look at the life of the hugely talented singer / songwriter whose career in the 1990s was cut short by his untimely death – out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 13th

It’s tempting to place Jeff Buckley among the all too long list of rock and roll music casualties who killed themselves via a mixture of excessive lifestyle and drug abuse, a list which includes Jeff’s absent, singer / songwriter father Tim, who died of a morphine and heroin overdose at age 28.

This documentary charts its subject’s life chronologically and thus doesn’t get to the issue of Jeff’s death until late on. Following his early years as a young hopeful living in New York City, Jeff Buckley relocated to Memphis where one day, aged 30, he swam out into the Wolf River (a tributary of the Mississippi) and was never seen alive again. The autopsy, which was pretty much open and shut, recorded that he had one beer in his system. Nothing else. The river at this location had a powerful undertow, so Buckley’s untimely death can be put down to a tragic combination of ignorance and misjudgement.… Read the rest

Tags 28 years old, 30 years old, absent father, Amy Berg, autopsy, bass, Bob Dylan, café, career, classical music, Columbia Records, concert pianist, contract, death, documentary, girlfriend, Greenwich village, growing up, he swim, he was living on borrowed time, home movie, home movie footage, Jeff Buckley, Jimmy Page, Joan as Policewoman, Joan Wasser, Led Zeppelin, Mary Guibert, Memphis, Miles Davis, Mississippi, morphine and heroin overdose, mother, music documentary, music festival, New York City, Nina Simone, Page and Plant, Rebecca Moore, record company, river, Robert Planet, rock and roll music casualties, rock music, Sin-é, singer, singer/songwriter, single parent, single parent mum, speaker, Tim Buckley, tributary, undertow, unfit father, untimely death, US, vibrations, Wolf River, work ethic, working tables, young hopeful

Features Live Action Movies Music

A Complete Unknown

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 16 January 2025
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Director – James Mangold – 2024 – US – Cert. 15 – 141m

*****

A feature narrative recreation of Bob Dylan’s career in New York up to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival gig where he switched acoustic guitar for electric – out in UK cinemas on Friday, January 17th

1961. Carrying his acoustic guitar, complete unknown Bobby Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in New York trying to find the hospital where legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie is being treated for terminal illness. After some false starts, Bobby finds the place, with Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) sitting by Woody (Scoot McNairy) at his bedside. Pete welcomes him, and Woody, who can barely speak, indicates he would like to have the young man play one of his own compositions. Bobby obliges. Both men are impressed. Sensing the youth has nowhere to stay, Pete invites him to stay at his house with his Japanese-American wife Toshi (Eriko Hatsune) and their two daughters.

Pete, who recognises in Bob a powerful talent and a new, artistic voice, is deeply committed to both political activism and folk music as a vehicle for social change. One of the organisers of the annual Newport Folk Festival, he takes the young Dylan under his wing and helps him get gigs.… Read the rest

Tags “I woke up famous”, 1961, 1965, A Complete Unknown, acoustic and electric, acoustic guitar, afternoon political discussion groups, Al Kooper, album cover photographs, annual, artistic voice, backing band, bar to watch a gig, bedside, Blowin' in the Wind, Bob Dylan, Boyd Holbrook, boyfriend, catalyst, Columbia Records, composition, conservative, contract, cultural history, Edward Norton, Einstein, electric guitar, Elle Fanning, folk music, folk singer, gig, guitar, Highway 61 Revisited, hospital, immersive experience, immortality, James Mangold, Japanese-American, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Like a Rolling Stone, Monica Barbaro, New York, New York apartment, newer material, Newport Folk Festival, Newport Folk Festival 1965, nowhere to stay, old tunes, organiser, overnight celebrity, painte, Pete Seeger, political activism, popular music, pull the plug, quiet corner, reaching a wider market, recognised by fans, recording studio, recordings, rock and roll, romance, Scoot McNairy, set list, social change, standards, Sylvie Russo, talent, terminal illness, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The Kinks, Timothée Chalamet, tipping point, Todd Haynes, unknown and celebrity, Woody Guthrie, You Really Got Me, youth, youth audience

Features Live Action Movies

New Life

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 17 June 2024
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Director – John Rosman – 2023 – US – 85m

***1/2

Neither the widow nor the assassin pursuing her towards the Canadian border are quite what they seem – genre-bending thriller is out on digital in the UK

The sound of a distressed woman. Now we see her (Hayley Erin) – her head is bleeding as she walks. Away from – what? She makes it down the street in a very normal-looking, small town somewhere in Middle America, into her very ordinary, well-kept, no frills, suburban house. She washes the blood off her head, switches a hoodie for a sweater. Constantly checking around her, she sees the armed men in the hallway and exits through a window.

Another woman (Sonya Walger) puts down her handgun on the edge of a bathroom sink. She looks tired. The yellow post-it notes on her mirror read “I have unlimited opportunities to succeed” and “I am in the process of becoming the best version of myself”. She takes a pill from the ‘M’ compartment of a little circular dispenser marked in letters for days of the week. On her mobile, she hits Play on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, specifically the song Like a Rolling Stone.… Read the rest

Tags a facility somewhere, a place to stay, accommodation, ALS, armed men, Ayanna Berkshire, bar, bathroom sink, been in contact, Betty Moyer, Blaine Palmer, bleeding, blood, Bob Dylan, border crossing, bottle of wine, breakfast, campfire, Canada, care professional, cat and mouse, change appearance, change clothes, chaos, chase, client, computer nerd, contract, dependent, dispenser, distress, escape, genre bender, glove compartment, guns, handgun, Hayley Erin, hayloft, Highway 61 Revisited, hit-man, hit-woman, incarcerated, incurable, Jeb Berrier, John Rosman, Kevin-Michael Moore, last known position, lift, Like a Rolling Stone, Lisa Cross, medical condition, medication, medicine, Middle America, mirror, mortality, Nick George, normal-looking, normality, on the run, out of control, outrun, patient, personal freedom, personal hell, personal nightmare, pickup truck, pill, pity, post-it notes, prey, prisoner in your own body, pursuer, pursuit, rely on others, rucksack, small town, Sonya Walger, stowaway, stray dog, street, suburban, supplies, survival, target, temporary work, theft, tired, Tony Amendola), tracking, US, videolink, walking stick, washes, woman, woods

Art Documentary Exhibitions Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen:
Hopper:
an American Love Story

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 18 October 2022
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Hopper:
an American Love Story
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Director – Phil Grabsky – 2022 – UK – Cert. 12a – 94m

*****

The story of American painter Edward Hopper, and how his artistic career was facilitated by his fellow artist wife Jo – originally out in UK cinemas on Tuesday, October 18th 2022, now available on home video (see bottom of review)

The latest entry in Grabsky’s generally excellent Exhibition On Screen series about art and artists covers the career of Edward Hopper to tie in with a major Hopper exhibition (Edward Hopper’s New York) at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The big (and most welcome) surprise is that it charts not just Hopper’s life and work but also that of fellow artist Josephine Nivison, later his wife Josephine Nivison Hopper, whose career was largely eclipsed by his during his lifetime. To be fair, it doesn’t really go into her life before the point at which she became involved in his.

Hopper was born in 1882 and raised in the Nyack, New York house his parents had built (an enviable state, indicative of their and his time, which must surely influence one’s outlook on life). Religion and church were important to the Hoppers, but theirs was the brand of Christianity unafraid to engage with the outside world which at that time meant vast quantities of books and periodicals; the young Edward acquired a love of books from his avid reader father.… Read the rest

Tags architecture, art, art student, avid reader, Bob Dylan, books, buildings, business manager, Cape Cod, Christianity, church, Church Mission, creativity, Cubism, David Lynch, description, Edward Hopper, Exhibition On Screen, First World War, fleshpots, France, Greenwich village, Hitchcock, House by the Railroad, houses, husbands and wives, hustle and bustle, illustration, Jo Hopper, Josephine Nivison, Josephine Nivison Hopper, light, light and shade, Manhattan, mass, Montmatre, Montparnasse, New York, Nighthawks, painting, Paris, partnership, periodicals, Picasso, plein air, psycho, reader, religion, sexual trauma, shade, shadow, sketch outside, still image narrative, Truro, twentieth century, UK, urban landscapes, US, verbal description, Washington Square, watercolour, Whitney Museum of American Art, World War 1, World War I, World War One, WW1