Whiplash (2014), Citizen Kane (1941), Some Like It Hot (1959), La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano (1998), La Notte (1961), La La Land (2016), Groundhog Day (1993), Out of the Past (1947) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Jazz movies.
Storyline: Fred Madison, a saxophonist, is accused under mysterious circumstances of murdering his wife Renee. On death row, he inexplicably morphs into a young man named Pete Dayton, leading a completely different life. When Pete is released, his and Fred's paths begin to cross in a surreal, suspenseful web of intrigue, orchestrated by a shady gangster boss named Dick Laurent.
Plot Keywords: surrealism, forced to strip, femme fatale, sex in a car, experimental film, female nudity, cocktail party ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A documentary film about the life of pianist and jazz great Thelonious Sphere Monk. Features live performances by Monk and his band, and interviews with friends and family about the offbeat genius.
Plot Keywords: national film registry, composer, europe, tour, recording session, 1940s, photograph ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: This action thriller follows LA cabbie Max Durocher, the type of person who can wax poetic about other people's lives, which impresses U.S. Justice Department prosecutor Annie Farrell, one of his fares, so much that she gives him her telephone number at the end of her ride. Although a dedicated man as seen through the efficiency in which he does his work, he can't or won't translate that eloquence into a better life for himself. He deludes himself into believing that his now twelve year cabbie job is temporary and that someday he will own his own limousine service. He even lies to his hospitalized mother that he already owns one, with a further lie that he tells her as such primarily to make her happy, rather than the truth which is that he won't do anything to achieve that dream. One night, Max picks up a well dressed man named Vincent, who asks Max to be his only fare for the evening. For a flat fee of $600, plus an extra $100 if he gets to the airport on time - Vincent wants Max to...
Plot Keywords: los angeles california, taxi, contract killer, taxi driver, driving at night, hostage, neo noir ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: For a predominately visual medium like cinema, its musical component plays a vital role as well, especially its score. In that essential musical accompaniment, the soul of the film is expressed whether it be sweepingly majestic fanfares or delicate lyrical pieces. This documentary explores the artistic role of this special musical discipline that completes the cinematic artistic creation process and the artists who have devoted their careers to this contribution. We explore the form's history and examine the masters who defined it with their own distinctive artistic vision. In doing so, the various components of this delicate creative process are revealed as they create a musical compositional work that has inspired a popular appreciation of music in all its forms, which gave some old musical ways their own new lease on life.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: film history, filmmaking, film clip, reference to alfred hitchcock, reference to facebook, reference to the beatles, archive footage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland's thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait...
Plot Keywords: comic book, movie reality crossover, based on comic book, cult figure, husband wife relationship, dark horse comics, 1980s ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: 1920s Broadway. Playwright David Shayne considers himself an artist, and surrounds himself with like minded people, most struggling financially as they create art for themselves, not the masses. David, however, believes the failure of his first two plays was because he gave up creative control to other people who didn't understand the material. As such, he wants to direct his just completed third play, "God of Our Fathers", insider scuttlebutt being that it may very well make David the toast of Broadway. With David having no directing history, David's regular producer, Julian Marx, can't find any investors,... until a single investor who will finance the entire production comes onto the scene. He is Nick Valenti, a big time mobster, with the catch being that his dimwitted girlfriend, non-actress Olive Neal, get the lead role. A hesitant David and Julian, who are able to talk Nick into them giving Olive one of the two female supporting roles instead, go along with the scheme hoping ...
Plot Keywords: independent film, mob hit, nightclub, pool hall, shakespearean quotation, turkish bath, stage ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Art Kane, now deceased, coordinated a group photograph of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine. Just about every jazz musician at the time showed up for the photo shoot which took place in front of a brownstone near the 125th street station. The documentary compiles interviews of many of the musicians in the photograph to talk about the day of the photograph, and it shows film footage taken that day by Milt Hinton and his wife.—Daren Gill
Plot Keywords: photograph, african american, harlem manhattan new york city, new york city, manhattan new york city, f rated, jazz ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Frankie Machine is a skilled card dealer and one-time heroin addict. When he returns home from jail, he struggles to find a new livelihood and to avoid slipping back into addiction.—Mike Campanelli <mjc@rubinbaum.com>
Plot Keywords: drummer, dysfunctional marriage, drug pusher, chicago illinois, husband wife relationship, falling to death, card game ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A young woman, Stanley Timberlake, dumps her fiance, Craig Fleming, and runs off with her sister Roy's husband, Peter Kingsmill. They marry, settle in Baltimore, and Stanley ultimately drives Peter to drink and suicide. Stanley returns home to Richmond only to learn that her sister Roy and old flame Craig have fallen in love and plan to marry. The jealous and selfish Stanley attempts to win back Craig's affections, but her true character is revealed when, rather than take the rap herself, she attempts to pin a hit and run accident on the young black clerk, Parry Clay, who works in Craig's law office.—Bonnie Barber <bonbar@mit.edu>
Plot Keywords: hit and run, virginia, phonograph record, face slap, telephone call, marriage proposal, divorce ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Enid and Rebecca after they finish the high school. Both have problems relating to people and they spend their time hanging around and bothering creeps. When they meet Seymour who is a social outsider who loves to collect old 78 records, Enid's life will change forever.
Plot Keywords: older man young girl relationship, coming of age film, f rated, mini skirt, short skirt, based on comic book, socially awkward ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1930s New Orleans, the Cincinnati Kid, a young stud poker player who travels from one big game to the next, stopping along the way up with various girls, is pitted against the legendary champion card-sharp Lancey Howard in a high-stakes poker game.
Plot Keywords: based on novel, new orleans louisiana, gambling, 1930s, poker player, card playing, card game ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Primo and Secondo are two brothers who have emigrated from Italy to open an Italian restaurant in America. Primo is the irascible and gifted chef, brilliant in his culinary genius, but determined not to squander his talent on making the routine dishes that customers expect. Secondo is the smooth front-man, trying to keep the restaurant financially afloat, despite few patrons other than a poor artist who pays with his paintings. The owner of the nearby Pascal's restaurant, enormously successful (despite its mediocre fare), offers a solution, he will call his friend, a big-time jazz musician, to play a special benefit at their restaurant. Primo begins to prepare his masterpiece, a feast of a lifetime, for the brothers' big night.
Plot Keywords: feast, italian restaurant, husband wife relationship, dinner party, dawn, celebrity, loan ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harry Angel has a new case, to find a man called Johnny Favourite. Except things aren't quite that simple and Johnny doesn't want to be found. Let's just say that amongst the period detail and beautiful scenery, it all gets really really nasty.
Plot Keywords: flashback, devil worship, bathtub, lust, teenage girl, serial killer, female rear nudity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Victor Navorski reaches JFK airport from a politically unstable country. Due to collapse of his government, his papers are no longer valid in the airport, and hence he is forced to stay in the airport until the war cools down. He makes the airport his home and develops a friendship with the people who work there until he can leave.
Plot Keywords: airport, flight attendant, fish out of water, based on true story, product placement, airplane stewardess, adultery ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: "American Pop" is the animated story of a very talented and troubled family starting with 19th century Russia and moving through several generations of musicians. The film covers American popular music from the pre-jazz age through rhythm and blues, 1950s rock 'n' roll, drug-laden psychedelia, and punk rock, finally ending with the onset of New Wave in the early 1980s.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: kansas, pop music, rotoscoping, rock music, lsd, prohibition, jewish ...
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