Review of Music and Lyrics (2007) by Chads. — 04 Mar 2007

For those of you who wished "Hustle and Flow" was a romantic comedy, your movie has arrived. "Music and Lyrics" is surprisingly realistic in showing the creative process. Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore in their own ditzy way, pull off the same trick of muse contacting as Terrence Howard did in his breakthrough role; this modern-day Brill Building team convinces you that they're actually writing a song, in the moment, with flirty banter that really hits the mark.

What Lester Bangs(Phillip Seymour-Hoffman) forecasted as an "Industry of Cool" in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" and in his legendary essays is the timeline "Music and Lyrics" begins with, the inception of MTV(not named here) and its terrible byproduct; the triumph of style over substance.

Although Pop bears a superficial resemblance to Wham, these fictitious eighties has-beens can't be Wham. Andrew Ridgley wasn't talented enough to have Alex Fletcher's fledgling career. Pop is more like Simon & Garfunkel reimagined as New Romantics.

"Music and Lyrics is a lot like the Crowe film in that it yearns for the recent past. The early-eighties isn't the late sixties(Haircut One Hundred, anybody?), but at least melody still took precedence over rhythm; best exemplified in "Music and Lyrics" when Cora Corman(an excellent Haley Bennett; her character is a perfect balance of innocence, and a self-assurance that vapidness is the new shrewd) thrashes a perfectly functional song you could perform at a karaoke bar.