Getting back to my favorite musical moments from 2024 films, here’s the second I’ve featured from a movie about a musician.
The film is Better Man and the musician is Robbie Williams, a hugely successful British pop star who is completely off the radar of most Americans. This is a guy who held the record for the UK’s largest stadium show yet has never had a song on the Billboard Top 40.
Petula Clark topped the Billboard Hot 100 the week of January 26, 1965, with ‘Downtown.’ It was the song’s second straight week at #1.
This single was the first U.S. chart-topper for the British singer/actress, and kicked off a phase of her career during which she released 15 consecutive Top 40 hits in the States.
Throwing back to the week of January 25, 1955, we find a slew of repeats atop the singles chart, as usual for this decade: ‘Let Me Go Lover‘ by Joan Weber, ‘Mister Sandman‘ by The Chordettes, ‘Hearts Of Stone‘ by The Fontane Sisters, and ‘The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane‘ by The Ames Brothers.
Keeping the sibling theme going at #5 that week were The McGuire Sisters with ‘Sincerely,’ a cover of a song written by Harvey Fuqua and Alan Freed for The Moonglows the previous year.
I’ll have more to say about My Old Ass when I get to my favorite 2024 movies, but for now I’ll call out one of its most amusing moments — a mushroom-induced hallucination that finds lead character Elliott (Maisy Stella) performing a Justin Bieber song with full choreography.
A previous mushroom trip led to Elliott meeting her older self (played by Aubrey Plaza), and she hopes this one will have the same result. Instead, she ends up fulfilling a childhood fantasy of bestowing a lucky audience member with a rose while singing ‘One Less Lonely Girl.’
My next 2024 music selection comes from a movie that stirred up quite a bit of controversy before it was even released. During a contentious election season, some people thought Alex Garland’s Civil War would encourage bad actors to start a real one.
It turns out the film was less about real world tensions and more about the journalists who capture horrifying images of war — to inform the public, but also for the grim fix it provides them.
Meet Me In Montauk 