Music Movies

Over the past year I have watched three music based motion pictures including Mumford and Son's The Road to Red Rocks, Big Easy Express, and Coldplay Live 2012. I'm not even sure if these class as 'films' as such, but I thought I would talk a bit about them today as I wanted to do something a little different than a normal film review or posting.

Big Easy Express won a Grammy last year for Best Long Form Music Video and I think it is very well deserved. This film, consisting of bands Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Old Crow Medicine Show, documents their train journey from San Francisco to New Orleans. It is packed full of folk and blues music as well as the musicians in their more relaxed form simply 'jamming' together on the many carriages of the old train. The film is shot beautifully, with a 'ruff around the edges' sort of feel and a look into the calming landscapes which they travel through. Big Easy Express stays true to the musicians and their unique performances captured along the way.

Coldplay Live 2012 was a lot more personal than the others, in the fact that it showed much more of the band behind the scenes and the interviews where a lot richer. However that does not take away from the fact that it used some god awful animation overlays through the WHOLE film.While the band were singing, neon coloured drawings fluctuated the screen taking away from the 'realness' of the live music. It was used to try and enhance the audiences experience but instead just made it look cheap and took away the attention to the music. If you watch it you will see exactly what I mean. 

It was nice that Coldplay captured little snippets from their shows and made a film out of them, and it was nice to turn it up really loud and dance around the living room to Paradise, however the annoying gimmicks over-shone their performance for me.

  

Ollie and I are the biggest fans of Mumford and Sons you could find, literally, and having seen them live twice this film is by far my favourite and the only one out of the three I have watched more than once (probably around 15 times). It is basically just a gig film, with little backstage interaction from the band which is a shame, but again it is beautifully shot, with breaks between songs showing what the band have been up to and the gigs they've hosted over the summer in the USA. It captures their journey to playing at the iconic venue of Red Rocks perfectly and gives Mumford fans, and folk rock fans alike another reason to jump around listening to banjos at full blast.  

Rosie