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Joel Selvin

Joel Selvin's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer® when published at Tomatometer-approved publication(s).
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Purple Rain (1984) 74% 4/4 EDIT “The film hangs on the flimsiest of plots, but the movie is really about Prince delivering the message in his music. And it is above all a frankly sentimental film about love -- not sex, fired by the spectacular music.” – San Francisco Chronicle Dec 8, 2025 Full Review The Velvet Underground (2021) 98% 3/4 EDIT “Over the years, the Velvets' slim but potent catalog has been elevated into the pantheon of classic rock, but only now Haynes has appropriately enshrined their deeds in a rock documentary as dark, dizzying and decadent as the band itself.” – San Francisco Chronicle Oct 15, 2021 Full Review Tiny Tim: King for a Day (2020) 85% 3/4 EDIT “There was never anything like Tiny Tim - not before or since - and, as the film makes clear, his character was anything but an act.” – San Francisco Chronicle Apr 22, 2021 Full Review Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine (2019) 96% 3/4 EDIT “"Creem: America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine" colorfully and convincingly makes the case for the magazine's lasting contributions, a sharp, hip piece of rock history told with the same kind of insolent wit that made Creem what it was.” – San Francisco Chronicle Aug 6, 2020 Full Review Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (2019) 84% 2/4 EDIT “Robertson has a gift for romanticizing his own hero's journey, even if in the end, the film comes off as elaborate self-justification.” – San Francisco Chronicle Feb 26, 2020 Full Review Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019) 89% 4/4 EDIT “None of the procession of associates and other commentators make the case for her greatness better than Ronstadt herself, captured in vintage clip after vintage clip, singing the hell out of everything she does.” – San Francisco Chronicle Sep 5, 2019 Full Review Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019) 91% 4/4 EDIT “It's a film that Miles himself would recognize - truthful, gritty, elegantly musical, unpredictable and even surprising - the kind of complex yet elegiac tribute a man as relentlessly real as Miles Davis deserves.” – San Francisco Chronicle Sep 4, 2019 Full Review Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes (2018) 95% 3/4 EDIT “The film burbles with an endless stream of beautiful jazz and the stark, penetrating session photographs by Blue Note principal Wolff brilliantly illuminate the visuals.” – San Francisco Chronicle Aug 7, 2019 Full Review David Crosby: Remember My Name (2019) 92% 4/4 EDIT “The glint in his eyes may have dimmed, but he is a resolute fighter, ready for his next bout. He can muster considerable charm and sing like a bird. In the end, that is what always got him by and why this film is as engaging and seductive as Crosby...” – San Francisco Chronicle Jul 25, 2019 Full Review The Quiet One (2019) 64% 3/4 EDIT “A banquet for Stones aficionados, an insider's scrapbook of memories and glimpses of an illustrious history that Wyman, without his vast collection, would be little more than a footnote to.” – San Francisco Chronicle Jun 20, 2019 Full Review Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019) 92% 4/4 EDIT “A glorious and slightly miraculous resurrection of a transcendent enterprise that would have otherwise passed into the mists of time.” – San Francisco Chronicle Jun 11, 2019 Full Review Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019) 86% 2/4 EDIT “Goodman never lets the music breathe, even slapping narration over Hendrix's masterful version of the national anthem, one of the great political statements in rock history.” – San Francisco Chronicle May 30, 2019 Full Review George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011) 87% 3/4 EDIT “A convoluted mass of contradictory characteristics, with a little Vaseline on the lens to blur some of the less comfortably explained pieces of the story.” – San Francisco Chronicle Aug 6, 2012 Full Review Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006) 87% 3/4 EDIT “Director Stephen Kijak not only got a composed, almost warm interview out of Walker, but he filmed some of the sessions for Walker's latest adventuresome recording project.” – San Francisco Chronicle Jan 23, 2009 Full Review Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer (2007) 100% 3/4 EDIT “A gentle, swinging film that pieces together her extraordinary life story from vintage performance clips and various interviews done over the years.” – San Francisco Chronicle Sep 26, 2008 Full Review Chapter 27 (2007) 18% 2.5/4 EDIT “The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene.” – San Francisco Chronicle Apr 18, 2008 Full Review Shine a Light (2008) 86% 4/4 EDIT “He brings all his skills as a filmmaker to the film, but Scorsese did not achieve the monumental dimensions of his movie from cinematic savoir faire. Shine a Light is huge because the Stones are giants.” – San Francisco Chronicle Apr 4, 2008 Full Review U2 (2007) 92% 2/4 EDIT “Having these enormous, almost disembodied figures endlessly cascading through space is more distracting than illuminating.” – San Francisco Chronicle Jan 24, 2008 Full Review Kurt Cobain About a Son (2006) 74% 1.5/4 EDIT “The ending section, where Schnack and Azerrad let Cobain ramble philosophically about life and music, is a muddled intellectual mess.” – San Francisco Chronicle Nov 30, 2007 Full Review Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007) 89% 3/4 EDIT “The Future Is Written is a loving testimonial to one of rock's true originals.” – San Francisco Chronicle Nov 9, 2007 Full Review Pete Seeger: The Power of Song (2007) 95% 4/4 EDIT “The filmmakers treat this aged curmudgeon almost too reverently, but it is hard not to be awed by this gentle, resolute soul because of the ideas he steadfastly and faithfully represented.” – San Francisco Chronicle Sep 14, 2007 Full Review Glastonbury (2006) 73% 3/4 EDIT “A warm and witty, detailed look at this parallel universe.” – San Francisco Chronicle Mar 2, 2007 Full Review Shut Up and Sing (2006) 89% 4/4 EDIT “[Natalie Maines] makes it clear in this astonishingly candid, intimate film that she doesn't think she has anything to apologize for.” – San Francisco Chronicle Nov 17, 2006 Full Review Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man (2005) 71% 3/4 EDIT “In the end, it's Cohen's songs that are what this loving musical portrait is all about.” – San Francisco Chronicle Jul 14, 2006 Full Review The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005) 88% 4/4 EDIT “Whether Johnston is a genius or a wonderful anomaly remains to be seen, but director Jeff Feuerzeig has stitched together a detailed portrait of the artist's life and music that is never less than compelling.” – San Francisco Chronicle Apr 7, 2006 Full Review
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