Culture
19 Feb 13

Hair Raising entertainment

He’s one of the most infamous figures in popular music – and not just because of his mushroom cloud hair. Now Al Pacino is slipping into the platform boots of producer Phil Spector, for an HBO biopic centred on his murder trial.

Al Pacino and Helen Mirren are the heavyweight leads in Phil Spector, the upcoming HBO biopic that tries to decide whether the legendary Wall of Sound man is a psychotic fruit loop or calculating cold-blooded killer.

Sporting a mind-boggling array of wigs – if not murder, Spector was definitely guilty of crimes against hair – Pacino is the spit of the Ronnettes/Crystals/Ike & Tina Turner-discovering producer who faces at least 15 more years in jail after being found guilty in 2011 of shooting actress Lana Clarkson.
Mirren is typically superb as the defence attorney who has to try and convince the jury that it was an accidental suicide. Watch the trailer at hbo.com/movies/phil-spector/index.html#
Spector would have shared a studio with a lot of the people featured in Twenty Feet From Stardom, a look at the likes of Darlene Love and Judith Hill who’ve toiled for years as Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones’ backing singers.
A big hit at the Sundance and Miami film festivals, it’s previewing now at facebook.com/TwentyFeetFromStardom
Sticking with music docs and The Ghost Of Piramida follows Danish experimentalists Efterklang as they spend nine days gathering random sound samples in two Russian ghost towns. Log on to theghostofpiramida.com to find out how you can host a free screening like the one taking place on February 26 in Whelan’s.
Which just leaves time for quick visits to youtube.com/watch?v=oLTwnXSbRfM (superb BBC documentary on the Reg Presley-fronted Troggs); thezztops.com (there’s beard growing commitment for you!); jpopasia.com/celebrity/yohio (cross-dressing 16-year-old J-Pop sensation) and themaclive.com (massive Andy Warhol exhibition comes to Belfast).