Sunday, June 21, 2015

All Things Must Pass Movie Review


No Music, No Life

AFI DOCS Plot: Tower Records was one of the most successful and recognizable music retailers in the world, but by the end of 2006 it was no more. Colin Hanks' affectionate and richly detailed film serves as a document of Tower’s spectacular rise and devastating fall, as well as a history of how we consumed our music in the latter half of the 20th century and what we may have lost in today’s digitally enhanced musical age.


I'm all for sentimentality; but it's hard to feel too sorry for a company that went from $1 billion in sales (1999) to bankrupt in just over five years. Tower Records was an institution; and Hanks paints a rosy picture early on, before slipping into a slow tale of (predictable) retail woes. Before that, we're treated to interviews with former employees (Dave Grohl) and super customers Elton John & Bruce Springsteen... each of whom has only good things to say about Russ Solomon's once-mighty empire. Problem is, you could make the same movie about Radio Shack, Sears or countless others.

GradeC+