Movies in the Drama/Musical genre

The standard-order musician’s bio-pic exists primarily as a way for filmmakers to capitalize on the popularity of a singer and an opportunity to provide viewers with a “greatest hits” compilation. Rarely do these films achieve any sort of ci...

Blinded by the Light is a one-third Bruce Springsteen hagiography, one-third kitschy ‘80s recreation, and one-third feel-good father/son coming together. Surprisingly, however, it works. The movie combines an infectious spirit with a serious...

The most compelling thing about Queen has always been the music. The story behind the band, like the stories behind many bands, is a combination of the banal, the tragic, and the clichéd. For this “based on a true story” movie, the filmma...

If one was to judge Country Strong based solely on its misleading trailer, one might assume this to be a cliché-riddled Crazy Heart wannabe. And, although I will not argue that the whole cloth from which the story has been cut contains its fair sh...

Generally speaking, the movie industry loves the concept of unrequited love…to a point. That point is, of course, that there’s a happy ending – a quality notably absent from Edmond Rostand’s play, Cyrano de Bergerac, upon which Joe Wright�...

The 2009 version of Fame, which represents the feature debut of director Kevin Tancharoen (who has a few TV credits to his name, including the series "Dancelife," and was involved in a Britney Spears tour), uses the 1980 movie of the same name as i...

When the characters in Footloose are dancing and the music is blaring, the film comes alive. It has energy and personality. Would that the same could be said about the dramatic scenes, which are hamstrung by a combination of mediocre acting and atr...

2014 has already seen one straightforward, largely unimaginative bio-pic of a '60s music icon (Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys) - now along comes another. Get on Up, like Jersey Boys, is more notable for its music than for anything else that ends up ...

The success of Going My Way, a mediocre, light drama with a few songs, is a testimony to the overall popularity of the musical genre in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. There's nothing special or memorable about this overlong endeavor, the first of two m...

The name of "Ziegfeld" is known to many who have never heard of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Even 80 years after the final show was produced, "The Ziegfeld Follies" remain among the best-known high class song-and-dance stage spectacles to grace Broadway. ...