May 15 movie: Somewhere Over the Rainbow: The Harold Arlen Story. I tried to get this movie from Netflix before the Harold Arlen tribute show back in February, but it was on "long wait" for ever. I think they must only have one copy, and some asshole music lover hung onto it for months. After the show I forgot to remove the movie from my queue, and it finally came available!
It's a great movie. Insightful comments from people who knew Arlen, biographers and historians, and home movie clips of Arlen. Plus lots of performances, by stars and by Arlen himself. Just what I want from a musical biography. So much better than that Beny More movie we watched a couple of weeks ago. If you're interested in Tin Pan Alley I can't recommend this enough. Arlen had such range: the man wrote both "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Kicking the Gong Around."
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