Rock on Film: The Movies That Rocked the Big Screen

“Rock on Film”. The title says it: “Rock on, film!”To coin a phrase, Author Fred Goodman wears his heart and his head on his sleeve. He loves music and rock music in particular. However, his love for that rough and tumble, both simple and complex folk art so well-called “rock and roll” goes beyond affection. He has adopted it into his thinking and imagination. It lives within him. How do I know this? Well, it didn’t require the powers of a mystic seer, nor was it divined by magic.Anyone who reads even a small part of “Rock on Film:” will immediately grasp that the author has joyously internalized the greater part of the many facets of this music and culture.Yes, rock is much more than mere music, as if that was not already a sufficiently profound human endeavour to think and write about. Those who do not comprehend the deeper zeitgeist that rock is and has been since the middle 1950s need to think again. Rock has both defined and been defined by the changing winds and gales of life in America since then, and in a manner and with a power that no other modern music can justly claim.“Rock on Film” brings that phenomenon into full and clear focus.Mr. Goodman‘s approach to this subject is often light and humorous while maintaining the due respect for it that it deserves. Each section of this book is full of history, cross reference, and insight. Mr. Goodman’s encyclopaedical knowledge of rock and the films that are about it, that host it, and that are an integral element of it is presented in such a way that readers will barely notice that they are gaining precious wisdom and perception while they are being, as T.S. Elliot said was the truest aim of the writer, so well entertained on the page.My only criticism: it wasn’t long enough. I never wanted it to end.Five stars out of five. Add a star if you think that rock and roll can free your mortal soul.

Love rock and movies? Both together here. Concert films, documentaries and movies about rock, all here. There are their choices as the best films along with alternate films to check out. TCM makes great film books.

This book was interesting in the movies it discussed, but it left out some very important rock films, such as Eddie and the Cruisers, Everyone Stares (Stewart Copeland’s excellent documentary about The Police), and definitely Head starring the Monkees. I know Rolling Stone magazine has always turned up the collective noses at the Monkees, but Head is an important film in the history of rock music in that it showed the establishment that the Monkees were more than just the”Pre-Fab Four”. The book is questionable at times (Grease is family fare? I don’t think so) but overall is fairly enjoyable. By the way, any REAL Elvis fan knows that King Creole is a far superior film over Jailhouse Rock. Next time, can we have a more comprehensive article on That Thing You Do? That movie certainly deserved better treatment than the little blip it got in the book. For a more complete guide to rock movies, try to locate a copy of Marshall Crenshaw’s Hollywood Rock.

Good book but barcode sticker was stuck to the book jacket. Had to remove jacket because it was damaged.

If you are looking for Rolling Stone reviews of these chosen films you are in luck. This is exactly what this book is all about.Saying this is a TCM film book is a major stretch of what that should, used to, mean. Part of what was “Classic” was the presentation, information, and passion for the films and those who made them.Now it just feels like another book rubber stamped TCM.