A couple of summers ago I had a number of rock songbook numbers that discussed the best films about pop music and rock. The original post laying out my picks was at First Things, and the list is provided here with handy-dandy links to the Songbook posts in which I discussed them:

10.) School of Rock (see Songbook nos. 54 and 55)

9.) Repo Man (see Songbook no. 56)

8.) This Is Spinal Tap (see Songbook no. 57)

7.) The Last Days of Disco (see Songbook nos. 67, 68, 69, 70)

6.) Almost Famous (see Songbook nos. 59, 60, 61, 62, 63!)

5.) The Doors (see Songbook no. 58)

4.) American Graffiti

3.) Honeydripper

2.) Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

1.) a mystery title

Obviously, I never got to 4 thru 1. The post on The Doors is one the best things I’ve written, BTW, and the Almost Famous ones are up there also.

Since then, I’ve only seen a couple of films that I would consider adding to that list, CBGB and Inside Llewyn Davis. The excellent recent film about Brian Wilson, Love and Mercy, and last summer’s somewhat less-accessible (while staggeringly brilliant in musical terms) Get on Up, about James Brown, are both too much the biopics to really make the cut. The under-appreciated if admittedly somewhat pedestrian Begin Again likewise was too much about the music-makers, this time fictional ones. What my list is about is films that in some way look at the role of pop music in everyday people’s lives, and in the overall culture. Films closely focused upon the musicians don’t quite do that.

It looks like the recent British film Northern Soul attempted to do just that, but it came and went without much U.S. attention, and it’s not even clear it will make Netflix. Over at Acculturated, R.J. Moeller recently talked about the new documentary on Amy Winehouse, but one of my original rules was no documentaries. If I allowed documentaries, Twist—even more shamefully absent from Netflix–would likely top the list.

Now I’ve already analyzed Inside Llewyn Davis, so what remains is CBGB, Honeydripper, American Graffiti, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? and the mystery film. Given my 4th of July spree, I’m in a rock n’ roll mood, so the plan for the moment will be to do American Graffiti, Honeydripper, and then shift things to punk rock for CBGB. Not sure if I’ll ever get to the remaining two.

Just letting y’all know what’s on the agenda—let me know if there’s any other films you think I should be considering here.