The best and the worst movies made by musicians
Many of the greatest musicians have a captivating presence that shines through whenever they appear on screen, whether it’s during a massive concert or in interviews. They possess the ability to remain engaging even when discussing topics they may not be fully invested in. However, transitioning to acting is a common endeavour among musicians, with varying degrees of success. From The Beatles to Prince, many have explored this crossover, resulting in both memorable performances and less successful ventures.
Since the first time artists began making surprise cameos in films, they have tried their hand at bringing their own visions to the silver screen. Although there was always a bit of a gamble getting these artists without their instruments on film, many of them worked like a charm, bringing the exact same positivity to their roles as they did to their onstage shows.
For all of the great movies made by musicians, there are occasionally the few that tend to fumble them. Since only a few musicians took to acting first, many of their turns behind the camera left a lot to be desired, either getting too wrapped up in what they were doing or trying their best to get something out of an insanely dull plotline.
Whether they fell on their faces or helped push the medium forward, though, having some of these artefacts work as nice windows into what was going on in the artist’s head when they were making some of the biggest albums of their career. Most musicians tend to dream of becoming actors anyway, and given what turned up, it’s anyone’s guess whether they would be spellbinding or wretched when they got behind the camera.
The best and worst movies made by musicians:
10. Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park – Kiss (0.5/10)
Kiss was as much a brand as they were a rock band by the end of the 1970s. Since they had made enough money and gone on enough tours to be one of the biggest bands in the country, where were you going to go next? Just combine them with the premise of Star Wars…it should go down like a charm, right?
Since no one in the band knew the first thing about acting, most of the TV movie Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park is practically incoherent from one frame to the next. Compared to artists that seem to have their heart in every frame they’re in, you can almost feel the band members reading from cue cards at every turn, not helped by cringe-inducing effects and some of the worst ADR ever put to screen.
There are even a handful of shots where the band didn’t even show up, with drummer Peter Criss’s lines being dubbed in after the fact by someone else and guitarist Ace Frehley’s stunt double being used for half his shots. With a band that has to be the best suited to rock and roll hijinx, it’s phenomenal that they fumbled it this hard.
9. Give My Regards to Broad Street – Paul McCartney (3/10)
Paul McCartney has given fans more than their fair share of thrills for years now. After becoming one of the biggest heartthrobs of his generation, making the career resurgence he did as a member of Wings feels like it should have been impossible. Things were looking up for McCartney throughout the 1970s, so hopes were high that he could take his trademark whimsy to the big screen for Give My Regards To Broad Street.
Considering the great talent he had at his disposal as well as reuniting with producer George Martin to flesh out the soundtrack, all of this had the makings of being a decent music video for McCartney. Somewhere along the line, there’s some lingering question in the back of your mind as you watch the film: what the hell is the plot?
Throughout the entire movie, all of it feels less like a movie and more like McCartney wanting to film whatever he wanted to, with dashes of the occasional decent music video spot for songs like ‘No More Lonely Nights’ sprinkled in for good measure. While he redeemed himself with his animated marvel Rupert the Bear around the same time, let’s hope that McCartney has more of an idea the next time he decides to bring his creative vision to the big screen.
8. Renaldo And Clara – Bob Dylan (5/10)
Anyone looking to find out who Bob Dylan really is is fighting a losing battle. Throughout his time in the spotlight, fans were never made privy to the kind of person Dylan could be without the cameras on him, often playing coy to the cameras and leaving his best material in his songs. Despite the impressive aspects he brought to documentaries like Don’t Look Back, Renaldo and Clara is one of the most perplexing things Dylan ever put out.
Being the first time that he stepped behind the camera, this is the kind of film that feels like a labour of love from Dylan. Having a greater visual medium to work with could have been a golden opportunity for Dylan to flesh out the characters of his stories, continuing to push himself beyond what the traditional writer was supposed to do.
While Dylan also stars in the film, the biggest crime comes from it being way too long-winded. Standing at nearly four hours, the actual plotline doesn’t support the movie’s run; feeling like a documentary between two people that never feels fully resolved by the end. For a man who was known for making songs where every word meant something, there’s shockingly little to glean despite some fairly impressive camerawork and the occasional decent scene.
7. Studio 666 – Foo Fighters (5/10)
Has there ever been a time when Dave Grohl has asked people to take him seriously? As much as he might be one of the greatest frontmen of the past few years, whenever he takes to the stage in Foo Fighters, he’s more than happy to take the piss out of his role whenever he has the chance. After getting the acting bug playing Satan in the Tenacious D film The Pick of Destiny, Hollywood came calling for Grohl again when making a spooky horror film.
Inspired by recording in a haunted studio when making the album Medicine at Midnight, Grohl made the kind of disposable slasher flick that seems tailor-made for the stoner comedy genre. Although the B-movie plot of Grohl becoming possessed and killing everyone in the band before he goes solo is admittedly pretty funny, the best parts of the film come more from the amount of star power around him.
Including a few self-deprecating shots of the band and some decent star power from actors like Will Forte, this feels like the definition of a movie that you stumble across in the middle of the night when surfing channels and get blazed to. Considering this was one of the last major Foo Fighters outings made while Taylor Hawkins was still alive, it’s nice to know the band was still having fun towards the end of his life.
6. Interstella 5555 – Daft Punk (7/10)
How do you sell a record if you don’t want to show your face? As much as artists can hide behind different mystiques throughout their careers, it’s almost a given that they have to at least show their faces to the world to be taken at least a little bit seriously. Daft Punk wasn’t going to budge behind those signature helmets, so the next best thing was to make one of the best animated films of their generation.
Pulling from the different anime styles they had loved watching as kids, Interstella 5555 is practically one long music video for the album Discovery. While the album itself is full of the most infectious dance music to come out of the 1990s, seeing the tale of this intergalactic band going from one location to the next is a lot more captivating than any kind of traditional music video would have been.
Even though a song like ‘Digital Love’ might be fine on its own, it’s an entirely different experience seeing it as the band is travelling through the cosmos or ascending into the greater realms of the galaxy towards the end of ‘Too Long’. Featuring one of the most wholesome endings in music history, Interstella 5555 is a love letter to the age when all that mattered was playing with toys and imagining a world bigger than your bedroom.
5. The Life of Brian – George Harrison (8/10)
Wait a minute, I can hear some of you saying. This is a list about musicians…how the hell is Monty Python on this list? They may have made a handful of great tunes in their day, but they are primarily a film collective. If it weren’t for the help of George Harrison, though, chances are The Life of Brian would have been lost to time and never seen by anyone.
When the troop first got the film into production, all of their funding got cut once the studio actually saw the script of what they were making. Pissed off that he wasn’t going to see it, Harrison eventually formed HandMade Films specifically to put up the movie, which Eric Idle once coined as the most that anyone has ever paid for a cinema ticket.
Despite giving fans the tune ‘Always Look On the Bright Side of Life’, the movie is still a brilliant farce regarding organised religion, poking fun at everyone who takes the concept of the afterlife and the coming of Christ a bit too seriously. Harrison didn’t need to shell out this much funding if he didn’t want to, but his generosity and being inspired by what made him laugh gave way to one of the greatest comedies in British history.
4. Tommy – The Who (8/10)
Pete Townshend always had grand ambitions for Tommy beyond just a concept album. Being one of the first real rock operas, Townshend made sure that the entire piece told a story from one track to the next, operating in the same way that typical operas are shown in classical theatres. The Who had already brought it to the stage, so it was only a matter of time before they took it to the screen as well.
Featuring a who’s who of talent from around the rock sphere, the film version of Tommy features major improvements on the already-classic album, like Elton John’s immaculate version of ‘Pinball Wizard’ and Tina Turner turning herself into ‘The Acid Queen’. While the cast also mixes in artistes like Oliver Stone and Jack Nicholson, Roger Daltrey does a fairly decent job in the lead role, playing that dead-eyed deaf, dumb, and blind boy perfectly.
The film also gives fans a chance to see some of the more cinematic pieces of the album play out in real-time, like the doctor visit going on in ‘Go to the Mirror’ or when everything is brought to a rousing end on ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’. Now, with a new Broadway adaptation on the horizon, Tommy was the kind of work that seemed too ambitious to be relegated to just a concept album.
3. A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles (9/10)
By the end of the 1950s, fans had already had a good idea of what a rock and roll movie was supposed to be. Since Elvis Presley kicked down the door for artists appearing onscreen, it wasn’t out of the question for another band to come to the forefront with a movie of their own. Now that The Beatles were the biggest names in the world, why not put them in their own film and give fans four Elvis’s for the price of one?
Capturing the madcap lunacy of the band’s first handful of tours, A Hard Day’s Night is the kind of rock and roll film everything afterwards was built from. From the band’s fantastic chemistry together to the insane energy of their dialogue, every member of the group is engaging from the minute they come onscreen, each one willing to get a few decent mugs for the camera at every opportunity.
The direction from Richard Lester also gave way to what would become the first major music videos, including the amazing shots of them running through a field soundtracked to ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. The Beatles may have only been looking to have some fun, but A Hard Day’s Night reminded everyone why rock and roll was so good in the first place. At the end of the day, it’s just non-stop fun.
2. The Man Who Fell to Earth – David Bowie (9/10)
Out of all of the great frontmen in rock history, David Bowie felt the most suited to make a transition to the silver screen. This was the same man who had studied mime before he had thought of becoming a musician, so it wasn’t out of the question that he could make something interesting when he was in front of the camera. After shedding his rock and roll alien counterpart, The Man Who Fell To Earth saw Bowie flirting with a different kind of alien persona.
From frame one, Bowie is playing the kind of lost soul that’s never comfortable in his own skin, trying his best to find his way back to his home planet. Although Bowie could have easily made this a cash grab, he works wonders in the lead role, playing both the vulnerable drifter unsure of his place in the world to the space oddity that most of us probably assumed he already was in real life.
This would open doors for where Bowie would be going next as well, from including a still from the movie on the cover of Station to Station to eventually leading to him starring in other films like Labyrinth and Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige. After spending years operating as an alien onstage, The Man Who Fell To Earth showed how Bowie was a master of personas, even without a guitar or microphone in his hand.
1. Purple Rain – Prince (10/10)
The kind of demands that Prince had for his Warner Bros contract feels impossible these days. Outside of producing most of his records himself, he had inked a deal that had him working with his musicians, The Revolution, not giving them full credit until the album 1999. That wasn’t enough, though. He needed a film deal, and Purple Rain is the kind of rock and roll movie people only dream of.
Modelled around Prince’s career trying to make ends meet in his native Minneapolis, much of the movie toes the line between soundtrack fodder and genuine drama. Even though it’s easy to get swept up in the sounds of songs like ‘The Beautiful Ones’ and ‘When Doves Cry’, the best parts of the film come when ‘The Kid’ is dealing with problems at home, either breaking down after the death of his father or dealing with his musical love affairs.
This wasn’t even the last time this kind of movie would be made, with Eminem’s 8 Mile practically a hip-hop version of what Prince had already done. Can you blame him, though? Once a musician has hit the nail on the head this well right out of the gate, why would you try to improve on it?
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