It Might Get Loud (PG)
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On Jan. 23, 2008, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge and Jack White (of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather) gathered to discuss the electric guitar and play parts of each other’s songs. In between footage of this summit, director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) splices footage of the guys charting the development of their iconic sounds and reflecting on their upbringing.
The buzz: There’s no doubt that the guitar has a voice and a personality, well-demonstrated by Page (whose axe drawls and stretches), the Edge (exercises and tinkers) and White (screams and howls). Does that fact deserve its own documentary?
The verdict: More of a toast to inspiration than a barometer of where guitar rock is now, “It Might Get Loud” delivers plenty of indelible moments for music lovers, from the Edge listening to an old demo for “Where the Streets Have No Name” to Page, in archival footage, appearing on TV and declaring he plans to go into biological research. What the movie does, though, is tap into the simultaneously deliberate and accidental occurrence of creativity and success, and a song’s path from the brain to the fingers to the ears to the stadium.
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Play the Game (PG-13)
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Ladies’ man David (Paul Campbell) meets his match in Julie (Marla Sokoloff), who doesn’t fall for his tricks. While David tries not to make an ass out of himself in front of the first girl he’s ever actually cared about, he also counsels his grandpa Joe (Andy Griffith) on how to score chicks.
The buzz: No one expects Andy Griffith to star in a movie that’s savvy about modern dating. All we ask is for Chicago native Marc Fienberg to keep the senior-citizen-related-sex-jokes-are-so-funny humor under control.
The verdict: Heavily, heavily inspired by “Hitch,” “Play the Game” replaces Will Smith’s charm with rigid performances and painful scenes of Joe trying to talk like his grandson. Not a moment rings true.
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Post Grad (PG-13)
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