Presented by Music Box and WBEZ’s Sound Opinions, the Summer Music Film Festival runs Friday through Tuesday, June 28 through July 2, at Music Box. Following are reviews of selected films; for a full schedule see musicboxtheatre.com.
Downloaded This engrossing documentary traces the rise and fall of Napster, the free file-sharing service that revolutionized music consumption, ran afoul of the record industry, and became a test case in copyright law. Writer-director Alex Winter focuses on the partnership between Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, who founded Napster in 1999, and the excitement of discovery and entrepreneurship is almost as potent here as in The Social Network (in which Parker figured as a character). But Winter is thorough as well, collecting a variety of opinions from musicians, record industry executives, and legal experts when the story turns to the copyright infringement suits filed against Napster in 2000 by Metallica and the Recording Industry Association of America. When Napster filed for bankruptcy two years later it created what one company insider refers to as “a $500 million sinkhole,” but it had opened up a national debate about what file sharing means for artists, listeners, and the businessmen who always manage to get between them. —J.R. Jones 107 min. Screens as part of a double bill with the 1989 comedy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Sun 6/30, 7 PM, and Mon 7/1, 5 PM.
Wild Style Charlie Ahearn’s 1983 cult classic is a semidocumentary about the emergence of graffiti art and hip-hop, which have been inextricably linked from the start. Using subway artist Lee Quinones as the lead and the media’s curiosity about him as a pretext, Ahearn’s narrative meanders through the clubs and rail yards of the South Bronx. Quinones is ill at ease doing the romantic scenes and reading the hokey dialogue, but the street kids around him play themselves naturally. The pacing is slow—inexcusable in a film about music—except when hip-hop takes over, and Ahearn wisely gives plenty of screen time to the likes of Busy Bee, Rock Steady Crew, and Fab Five Freddy. —Ted Shen R, 82 min. Sat 6/29, 2 PM, and Mon 7/1, 9:15 PM.
