20 Feet from Stardom (2013, Morgan Neville)

Expertly put together, a great show. Attempts a late swerve into pathos because all of their solo stardom didn’t take off, which clashes with the early sentiments about being all about the music. In the discussion of who treated the singers better or worse, Jonathan Demme and Joe Cocker and Sting and Luther Vandross come out well, Ike Turner and Phil Spector less so. I thought about Kelly Hogan at least every couple minutes.

“Rock and roll… saved our lives.”
“You get hooked on music, you’re fucked.”

–
Trances (1981, Ahmed El Maanouni)

An ambient rock doc – if it’s not self-evident that the music is good, if you don’t know why these guys are big, nobody’s gonna tell you. The band is called Nass El Ghiwane, and we get a mix of performance, rehearsal, and, not exactly interview, but pointing the camera at a band member until he starts talking.

I dunno about “a free-form audiovisual experiment” or “pure cinematic poetry” per the Criterion press, but it’s got nicely edited archive film and some really good closeups. The group (with two original members) was still playing as recently as last year.