Vancity keeps the tunes cranked

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      The resurrection and the light come to Vancity Theatre in the New Year, musically speaking.  

      But before that, the local film centre is bent on keeping the tunes cranked through the holiday season with a series of music-themed movies, bringing back the acclaimed documentaries 20 Feet From Stardom (December 28), Good Ol’ Freda (December 29), Muscle Shoals (December 30), and Lou Reed’s Berlin (December 31)—the latter being Julian Schnabel’s 2007 film of the late Mr. Crankypants mounting a live version of his classic 1973 album.

      The Vancity also resumes its ever-popular Music Mondays series in January with something akin to the Brit-pop origin story. Shane Meadows’s film, The Stone Roses: Made of Stone (January 6), captures the Madchester legends preparing for their 2012 reunion—a true second coming for a band whose impact on late ‘80s UK culture is incalculable.

      “It’s a very special band,” says Vancity programmer Tom Charity. “In Britain, for sure, they really epitomized the breakthrough of rave culture and everything that went with that. Like Ecstasy, for example. And for a whole generation, I think, they were the greatest band they knew. They were absolutely huge except they didn’t stay around long enough.”

      Filmmaker Meadows is an unapologetic fanboy. Reviews out of the UK touch on the euphoria that inevitably percolates through the film, though Charity adds with some amusement that Made of Stone is “a fail” as an objective documentary. When things start to go sideways for the reunited four-piece, the camera “discreetly backs out of the room,” as he puts it.

      But…,” continues Charity, “it works even despite that because what comes through is that Shane loves the band, and by the end of it—because they iron over their differences and they get it back together—you do, too. Or you fall back in love with the band. So I think in the wider scheme of things, if you’re a fan, you’re gonna love this film. And if you’re not a fan, then I think you’ll probably watch it quizzically, and by the end it may well convert you because the music’s so strong and they’re in such great form.”

      Comments

      2 Comments

      sip

      Dec 29, 2013 at 8:01am

      hopefully they'll play this with subtitles. those manchester folks are hard to understand...

      Adrian Mack

      Dec 29, 2013 at 7:51pm

      @sip, no subtitles but I believe Tom is providing a live translation