Boychoir (2014)

I'm not sure why this movie wasn't rated beter, its an uplifting movie and guaranteed to make you make you cry. Dustin Hoffman at is best. A must see !

The music in this film is almost all modified, some might say butchered, to fit the needs of the editing and pacing. The modified versions, however, are beautifully sung. So much for the purists among us. Since this problem is well covered by other reviewers here, let me move on.The DVD extras reveal that in the minds of the filmmakers - director, actors, et al. - a central "message" of the movie is the too-familiar cliché of films pointed at children, that one can achieve anything with enough determination, hard work, and perseverance. To make that premise work, our hero, Stet (Garrett Wareing) must struggle with failure, hopelessness, rejection and conflict -- which he does -- and must overcome it using tools he discovers inside himself -- which he also does. What he does *not* do - or rather, what the script does not allow him to do - is give us a clue about where the miracle of his serial transformations comes from. We are left with a roller-coaster ride in which at takeoff he is troubled and seemingly alone, and at the end he is triumphant. Along the way, all we see are the peaks and valleys, with no view of the tracks he's riding on, the weather conditions, or even his real reason for taking the ride in the first place. I realize that to solve this problem, you might need the cinematic equivalent of Wagner's Ring (a 21-hour opera), so maybe it's too much to ask. It could also be solved by having a hero who has dreamed of joining a boychoir and prepared himself for years, whose difficulty is only the fact that he hasn't had the chance until opportunity unexpectedly knocks. That way we'd already know why (and how) he is able to overcome the obstacles that the rigorous choir standards put in his way.I cannot leave this review without a serious condemnation of this film's injustice to Händel's Messiah, specifically his chorus, Hallelujah (Part the Second, No.44 in most editions). Other reviews have rightly criticised this mistreatment as unworthy of a serious film about a world class boychoir. (I might add that I am astonished that the American Boychoir even agreed to record it in the first place.) It would have been unconscionable enough, had the filmmakers merely added the descant with the sycophantic high-D to the "arrangement" as it appeared in the film. But they went even further, and inserted a conversation into the script in which Drake (poor, clueless, brilliant Eddie Izzard who should have been able to depend on the scriptwriters for historical accuracy) proposes that they "one-up" the Vienna Boys Choir by writing a descant - "we write a new solo part; they were all doing it back in those days; keep it in the same key, and hit a high D". At first blush he's right - descants were commonplace, and are still being written today - but for hymns and folk songs, not fully-composed pieces, published in authorised editions, such as Messiah. I would surrender my entire reputation - undergraduate music degree, sixteen years of professional (i.e., paid) choral singing, and a thorough familiarity with Messiah performance practice going back to 1960, when I was fourteen - if anyone can document even a single instance of a solo descant being associated with Hallelujah in any creditable edition or performance. A descant hovering over Hallelujah would be rather like a beautiful sunset painted over the countryside behind the Mona Lisa. Sunsets are beautiful crowd-pleasers, but for over 500 years, the Mona Lisa as originally portrayed has been quite enough for viewers to marvel at. So with Hallelujah: pleasing crowds quite adequately, thank you, since 1741. The worst result, of course, is that this ill-advised detour from history and musicality may well be viewed by some young musician who will naïvely regard it as truth, since it was presented in such a realistic setting. Inexcusable only begins to describe it.

Review: For a movie about a genre of music that I'm not really into, I quite enjoyed this emotional drama because of the transitions that the main character, Stet (Garrett Wareing), went through in his life. The movie starts of with Stet getting into a fight in school, which was a regular occurrence and when he gets home he has to deal with his alcoholic mother which adds to Stets traumatic life. The head teacher in his school has complete faith in his amazing voice, even though he has a bad attitude and causes trouble in the school, so she invites a top school to perform and recruit any talented singers in her school. At the audition, Stet gets to nervous to perform in front of the top composer Master Carvelle (Dustin Hoffman) and his trustee protégé Drake (Eddie Izzard), so he walks out of the room and goes home, only to find out that his mum has died in a car crash. With nowhere to go, his head teacher calls his dad Gérard (Josh Lucas) who has disowned Stet because he was born after a one night stand with his mother and he has his own family at home. The head teacher Ms. Steel (Debra Winger) suggests to Stets father that he should go to the highly rated music school because he has an amazing voice so Gérard pays for Stet attend, even though they are nearly halfway through the term. Stets attitude becomes difficult to handle at the beginning of his musical journey at the school but he soon has to buck up his ideas because Master Carvelle isn't having none of his foolishness. After a while, Stet is able to control his bad attitude and the teachers soon realise that he has an amazing gift. He then gets put in front of the choir and he sings the lead in the performance of a life time, which helps both Stet and Master Carvelle pursue there dream. The storyline was written extremely well and all of the actors put in top performances, especially Dustin Hoffman. It did seem slightly predictable right from the beginning but there is enough material to make the film watchable. Hoffman's stern teaching methods mixed with Stets  self destructive attitude was a great mix and the emotional scenes with his father, especially near the end, makes this movie a right tear-jerker. Anyway, it's a well made emotional drama which might look a bit boring to a lot of people but it worth a watch. Watchable!Round-Up: The director of this movie had some top actors to work with, like the Oscar winning Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Debra Winger, Josh Lucas and Eddie Izzard so he was guaranteed top performances. Dustin Hoffman, 78 but still looking good, has starred in over 70 movies in his career which have grossed nearly $2Billion. He has won 2 Oscars in his career for Rain Man and Kramer vs. Kramer but his biggest earning movie turns out to be an animation film called Kung Fu Panda. Anyway, this film was directed by François Gérard who also brought you the Red Violin starring Samuel L. Jackson. Budget: N/A Worldwide Gross: $1.8millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their emotional dramas/music about a self destructive boy who is sent to a top music school to pursue his singing career in a choir after losing his mum. 5/10

This movie, released in 2015, had a brief run recently at Princeton's nonprofit movie theater. It's the story of the fictional "National Boychoir School" and features the singing of students from the local, real-life American Boychoir School. ABS has fallen on hard financial times, and if it needed an infomercial to stimulate a really big donation, this is it. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Debra Winger, and Eddie Izzard in the adult roles, but director François Girard and writer Ben Ripley demand little of their talents. The story dwells mostly on the boys, and one particular boy (Garrett Wareing)—a misfit who arrives at the school unable even to read music, yet such a vocal prodigy that . . . yes, you can guess the rest. When the credits rolled and it turned out the movie had some affiliation with the Hallmark Hall of Fame, that was one of the least surprising moments in a string of non-surprises. Leaving aside its dramatic shortcomings, the creators' generosity with the music lifts the whole production. Actual ABS students are used in the production, according to a local news story, and director Girard said of the school, "It was extraordinary to see them at work. What they accomplish goes way beyond music." A good movie for kids and a pleasant, if unchallenging interlude for grownups, too.