Not Fade Away

It's all about the music
"Not Fade Away" (2012 release; 112 min.) is the debut feature film from writer-director David "The Sopranos" Chase. The story is very loosely based on Chase's days of growing up in New Jersey in the early 1960s, with Douglas (played by John Magaro) standing in for Chase. The movie starts with a retelling of the infamous meeting between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on a train in the early 60s, and not long thereafter we see the Stones appear on TV and Douglas and his friends want to start a band "like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles". The voice over is from Douglas' sister, informing us she is going to tell "the story of this band nobody has ever heard off". There are many side stories and characters in the movie, none more so than Douglas' dad, played by James "Tony Soprano" Gandolfini, which in my opinion was very risky: how can you see this man play yet another Italian patriach with an anger problem and not think Tony Soprano?

But in the end the story line is...

A love letter to 1962-68 pop/rock music. Only the Blu-ray has the 41 minutes of bonuses.
I saw this film on the big screen last year at the Philadelphia Film Festival and was looking forward to seeing it on home video and to see what bonus features would be added. There's so much music - both played by the actors as characters in the film, and as snippets of licensed music from the 1962-68 time period, that I sometimes lost track of the story while concentrating on the great music - selected, by the way, by Executive Producer Steven Van Zandt (of the E Street Band). (When I saw in the theater I kept asking myself what the licensing fees must have been to release this film.)

As you will learn from the Bonus features on the Blu-ray (no bonuses on the standard DVD) this film was germinating in the mind of writer/director David Chase from the moment his HBO series "The Sopranos" ended. It took a while for him to say what he wanted. Not to give any "spoilers" (but I think you will find it helpful), Chase chose ACTORS , not musicians, to play the roles of members of...

Great coming-of-age movie
I really enjoyed this film. Loved how the events of the time didn't overshadow the main character's focus on his dream: becoming a rock star. Fantastic performances from the lead (I felt like I knew Douglas in high school -- he was that guy who was suddenly cool because he was on stage) and surely all the supporting characters. Another amazing performance by James Gandolfini, who is perfect in this role. His wife, played by Molly Price, is so spot-on bitter and harsh, it's hard to believe she was acting.
Loved it.

Click to Editorial Reviews