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VINCE GIORDANO: THERE’S A FUTURE IN THE PAST

If you are already a fan of Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks like me, you’ll need no urging to see this new documentary by Dave Davidson and Amber Edwards. It opens at the Cinema Village in Manhattan today. For nearly forty years Vince has kept the music of the 1920s and 30s alive, leading an elite 11-piece band that plays original arrangements from the period with flair and precision. (Their current home is Iguana, a restaurant on 54th Street where you can hear them every Monday and Tuesday night.) He is also the man such filmmakers as Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese turn to when they want authentic sounds for their period pictures and TV shows.

Vince is a man obsessed, and we in the audience are the beneficiaries of his lifelong passion. But finding musicians who understand how this music was meant to be played and making a living doing it are herculean challenges, as we learn in Vince Giordano: There’s a Future in the Past. Hauling huge instruments and music stands and setting up the bandstand would be enough to discourage a lesser person.

If you’re not already interested in vintage pop and jazz music I don’t know if this documentary will transform you into an admirer, but I can’t get enough of it, and the film makes me admire Vince’s singular vision all the more. Watch the trailer HERE and see if you don’t start tapping your feet.

Leonard Maltin is one of the world’s most respected film critics and historians. He is best known for his widely-used reference work Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and its companion volume Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide, now in its third edition, as well as his thirty-year run on television’s Entertainment Tonight. He teaches at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and appears regularly on Reelz Channel and Turner Classic Movies. His books include The 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen, Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons, The Great Movie Comedians, The Disney Films, The Art of the Cinematographer, Movie Comedy Teams, The Great American Broadcast, and Leonard Maltin’s Movie Encyclopedia. He served two terms as President of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, is a voting member of the National Film Registry, and was appointed by the Librarian of Congress to sit on the Board of Directors of the National Film Preservation Foundation. He hosted and co-produced the popular Walt Disney Treasures DVD series and has appeared on innumerable television programs and documentaries. He has been the recipient of awards from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Telluride Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and San Diego’s Comic-Con International. Perhaps the pinnacle of his career was his appearance in a now-classic episode of South Park. (Or was it Carmela consulting his Movie Guide on an episode of The Sopranos?) He holds court at leonardmaltin.com. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook; you can also listen to him on his weekly podcast: Maltin on Movies. — [Artwork by Drew Friedman]

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