{"id":8375,"date":"2016-06-05T23:31:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T05:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=8375"},"modified":"2016-06-05T23:31:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-06T05:31:50","slug":"quick-take-sing-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/05\/quick-take-sing-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Take: Sing Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/sing-street_cast-hero-walk-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-8376 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/sing-street_cast-hero-walk-1.jpg\" alt=\"sing-street_cast-hero-walk\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/sing-street_cast-hero-walk-1.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/sing-street_cast-hero-walk-1-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\" \/><\/a>I feel like I&#8217;m late for the party on <em>Sing Street<\/em>, as it&#8217;s been making its way around the U.S. since April, but if you haven&#8217;t heard of it yet, take my word for it: you <em>will<\/em>. And if you haven&#8217;t seen it yet, you <em>should<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>An Irish import filmed in Dublin, <em>Sing Street <\/em>is a rare cinematic treasure: a movie that is both joyous <em>and<\/em> poignant, fanciful <em>and<\/em> authentic, with an ending that is exactly what you need it to be without it feeling predictable. In a nutshell, it&#8217;s the story of a fourteen-year-old boy who forms a band to impress a girl and escape from the grim realities of his daily existence, but it&#8217;s so much more than that. It&#8217;s a love letter to the mid 1980s and the synth-pop music videos that dominated MTV at the time. It&#8217;s also a slice-of-life picture about a gritty urban school milieu that is no more. It&#8217;s a comedy-drama about brothers and brothers in arms, as well as the struggle to find yourself in spite of the petty bullies who want to squash your spirit. And it&#8217;s a clear-eyed depiction of young romance. Mostly it&#8217;s about that time in everyone&#8217;s life when you feel both hope and disappointment more keenly than you ever have before and ever will again.<\/p>\n<p>This is the kind of movie I sometimes see and think &#8220;I wish I&#8217;d written this,&#8221; while secretly fearing that I don&#8217;t have enough talent to pull it off, at least not this well. The music is great and the evocation of 1985 is spot-on, as is the casting. It&#8217;s refreshing to see a movie about teenagers in which the actors actually <em>look<\/em> like teenagers. And I&#8217;ve got to say that<a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-Fsdf7cjhYFk\/VpoV5TlT4MI\/AAAAAAAAGs8\/g5ozkl1Hluo\/s1600\/Lucy_boynton_Sing_street.jpg\"> Lucy Boynton<\/a>, who plays the mysterious older girl who claims to be a model and catalyzes the entire plot, is some kind of amazing. When I was a teenager, I&#8217;d have become a musician for her myself.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sing Street<\/em> is charming on every level. Don&#8217;t miss it.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, one final note: the makers of this movie must&#8217;ve cleaned out every vintage clothing store in the UK to find all that acid-wash. Wow&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"height: 36px; text-indent: 36px; padding: 0px 10px 0px 0px; text-align: center; font: bold 14px\/36px 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 4px; background: #bd081c  no-repeat scroll 6px 50% \/ 24px 24px; position: absolute; opacity: 0.85; z-index: 8675309; display: none; cursor: pointer; top: 23px; left: 58px;\">Save<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I feel like I&#8217;m late for the party on Sing Street, as it&#8217;s been making its way around the U.S. since April, but if you haven&#8217;t heard of it yet, take my word for it: you will. And if you haven&#8217;t seen it yet, you should. An Irish import filmed in Dublin, Sing Street is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-studies","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}