From executive producer Ryan Murphy and director Andrew Rossi, Netflix presents a breathtakingly expansive, six-part portrait of the remarkable life of Andy Warhol, chronicled from an intimate vantage point offered by the artist’s own posthumously published diaries.
For The Love Of Spock is an upcoming documentary, directed by Adam Nimoy, that both celebrates the 50th anniversary of Star Trek and reflects on the inspiring life of Spock, actor and father Leonard Nimoy. With Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock in the Star Trek reboot films, narrating the documentary, For The Love Of Spock is set for release sometime in 2016. Looking forward to this one 🙂
Daft Punk Unchained: BBC Worldwide France have release the first official trailer for Daft Punk Unchained, a new documentary about the rise of the influential French electronic music duo, Daft Punk. Directed by Hervé Martin Delpierre, this revealing documentary, which has no official premiere date as of yet, features interviews with iconic artists such as Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Nile Rogers, Giorgio Moroder, and many more. Looking forward to this one 🙂
The Wrecking Crew: The Beach Boys, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Sonny & Cher, Nat King Cole and many, many more. Behind their success was a group of studio musicians called The Wrecking Crew. What the Funk Brothers did for Motown, The Wrecking Crew did, only bigger, for the West Coast Sound. Six years in a row in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Grammy for “Record of the Year” went to Wrecking Crew recordings. And now, ‘The Wrecking Crew’ tells the story in pictures and that oh, so glorious sound. ‘The Wrecking Crew’ is a documentary film produced and directed by Denny Tedesco, son of legendary late Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco, and tells the story of the unsung musicians that provided the backbeat, the bottom and the swinging melody that drove many of the number one hits of the 1960’s. The Wrecking Crew was a nickname coined by drummer Hal Blaine for the group of studio and session musicians that played anonymously on many of these recordings. The crew backed dozens of popular singers, and were one of the most successful groups of studio musicians in music history. The Wrecking Crew’s members were musically versatile but typically had formal backgrounds in jazz or classical music. The talents of this group of “first call” players were used on almost every style of recording including television theme songs, film scores, advertising jingles and almost every genre of American popular music, from The Monkees to Bing Crosby. Notable artists employing the Wrecking Crew’s talents included Nancy Sinatra, Bobby Vee, The Partridge Family, The Mamas & the Papas, The 5th Dimension, The Association, The Carpenters, Glen Campbell, Cher, John Denver, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, The Grass Roots and Nat King Cole. The record producers most often associated with the Wrecking Crew are Phil Spector, who used the Crew to create his trademark “Wall of Sound”; and Beach Boys member and songwriter Brian Wilson, who used the Crew’s talents on many of his mid-1960s productions including the songs “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls”. LOVE – Can’t wait to see this doco in full! Check out the trailer below:
Coffee crazies: “Some people use coffee as a drug, and some people use it as a joy,” says filmmaker and Swallow Magazine founder James Casey. “I went from being the former – needing it when I was tired or as a digestif – to learning that, more than just a beverage, it’s a culture.” Casey’s rousing film captures the frenetic pace of caffeinated New York, featuring a cast of obsessives like Jesse Kahn of roasters and educators Counter Culture, and Oliver Strand, the pre-eminent New York Times coffee writer, as well as more casual sippers such as Nancy Whang, formerly of LCD Soundsystem, and Mission Chinese Food’s Angela Dimayuga. Coffee cultivation first took place in Southern Arabia; the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen. In the Horn of Africa and Yemen, coffee was used in local religious ceremonies. Coffee plants are cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in the equatorial regions of the Americas, Southeast Asia, India and Africa. The two most commonly grown are the highly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but stronger and more hardy robusta. “Coffee culture was far more prevalent in places like San Francisco, and there’s no defining aspect to coffee in New York because it is so broad,” explains Casey. “There’s everything from Scandinavian-style coffee in parts of Brooklyn to a prevalence for blue collar, dark roasted Italian coffee. I also learned that it is not just about taste, but that there’s a qualitative aspect with regards to the ethical question of coffee, fair trade, and what you are willing to support.” While I love great coffee, I have been known to settle for rubbish just to get a hIt of the black magic – I can not even contemplate my day until I’ve had a cup of coffee and I wouldn’t be giving it up for anything or anyone. Life is just way too short.
