John Carney

The musical never completely died as a movie genre, but it did lay dormant for a good long while throughout the 1980s and ’90s, with only the occasional throwback like Pennies From Heaven, Newsies, or Everyone Says I Love You popping up, like an old memory. Back then, the movie business largely conceded its tradition of song-and-dance to Disney cartoons and MTV, assuming — wrongly — that the idea of flesh-and-blood actors breaking into big numbers in the middle of narrative feature films had become too cornball for the modern mass audience.

When directors or celebrities say stupid or rude remarks in interviews, they often throw the blame at the journalist or offer a non-apology. But it’s most refreshing when someone takes full responsibility for their words and admits to fault.

With Sing Street currently charming the pants off of critics and moviegoers alike, we’ve come one step closer to forgetting all about Begin Again — John Carney’s misstep between the beloved 2007 musical Once and his latest effort. You’d think that Carney would be proud of his acclaimed new musical and thrilled that it’s been so well-received. You’d think this guy couldn’t possibly have anything negative to say at this moment in time. You’d think that he might also be happy that most people seem to have forgotten about Begin Again. Your thinking could not be more wrong.

John Carney’s Sing Street was a hit at Sundance, but when we spoke with the director he told us that it might be his last musical for a while. It looks like Carney may have found his first non-musical gig with Russ and Roger Go Beyond, the long-developing project that will explore the friendship between iconic film critic Roger Ebert and cult director Russ Meyer, who collaborated on Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

As any fan of ‘Once’ can attest, writer, director John Carney is a master at capturing the complexities of love through music. In his latest musical, ‘Sing Street,’ Carney pulls from his own past as a misfit school boy in the 1980s who found solace in music.

Is it OK to jump out of your seat and the end of the movie and pump your fist with excitement like it’s the end of an epic, transcendent rock concert? Because that’s what I wanted to do at the end of Sing Street, the latest romance musical film from John Carney (Once), whose sheer joy and enthusiasm is so infectious it’s very hard to not clap, cry and, yeah, jump out of your seat...

Has there ever been a better time to be teenage, depressed, and listening to music than the United Kingdom in the ‘80s? The seedlings of New Wave and post-punk had been planted during the rollicking ‘70s, and the industrial dead ends of small-town life in the U.K. facilitated their germination into the thriving scenes in Manchester and London. Anyone coping with the myriad indignities of life in high school needed only to put on the latest record from the Cure and allow the melancholy to wash over them. The kids were not alone; they had Robert Smith.