Who wouldn't enjoy this? Do you need to know all about the musicians? Isn't its celebratory nature enough?

"BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB", Wim Wenders' documentary about forgotten Cuban musicians reviving (then exceeding) former glories, is a beautiful true story.
Havana is an impossibly cool setting for the tale. Before the revival, singer Ibrahim Ferrer was shining shoes, and Ruben Gonzalez had got rid of his dilapidated piano and was resigned to arthritis.
Guitarist and songwriter Compay Segundo, in his nineties in the film, was an irrepressible character, and is shown boasting of his virility with a glint in his eye and a huge cigar in his mouth.
The natural finale is the performance by the whole group at Carnegie Hall - I can't think how any performance could be more moving.

Another nomination for the list of films for non-musos would be "THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT", for the simple reason that if watching it doesn't make someone - anyone - resolve to quit their job tomorrow and devote their life to rock 'n' roll, I can only pity them.

I tried sitting through The Last Waltz with Mrs Drayton.
Her Verdict - 'It's an ordeal. Just some hippies looking for a tune. There's no plot'.
She liked Quadrophenia though.

Dexter Gordon is magnificent in a role that draws as much on his own experience as a jazz musician as well as the loose parallels with Bud Powell 's time in Paris.
Bertrand Tavernier's film is a tale of friendship, human frailty and the demons that drive the inspired and driven musician. It's a film for anyone who loves music, not just a jazz audience.

Easy with the gender divide there Mr Drayton, some of us civilians can have deeply muso tendencies too y'know!

E.g. in Control, Joy Division are shown playing Transmission for their first TV appearance on Granada Reports, when, as eny fule kno, they played Shadowplay.

I'll get my girlie anorak...........

Can I just say at this juncture that Almost Famous was a completely missed opportunity? It was thoroughly sterile, anaemic and dull; whereas it should have - and easily could have - been the genuine article on every level. I think the scene in Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise changes the radio station in his car from The Rolling Stones to Gram Parsons to Tom Petty probably said more about music than all of Almost Famous did.

'It's been a Hard Day's Night
And I've been working like a dog
It's been a-'

I think you get the idea.
Tired of this, tired of life.

Particularly because it has Steve Coogan in it, and particularly because I don't think you need to know anything about Manchester or Factory Records to get something out of it.

Who needs stars when you have soul?