Carmine Street Guitars (2018) Reviews

• Old School Cool

  LeonardHaid2019-04-25

  A small, intimate film which mostly takes place in a cramped and cluttered guitar shop where master guitar maker Rick Kelly and his apprentice design and create guitars out of wood recycled from old dead New York City trees, old demolished New York City buildings, and once Rick even scored some wood from the oldest tavern in New York City still in operation. Musicians - and Jim Jarmusch - come into his shop, talk about guitars and other things, and sooner or later some of them zero in on the guitar that has their name on it. But all of them play a little something, and it's all wonderful as the setting is just so intimate and conducive to music. Jim Jarmusch comes in with a guitar made out of catalpa wood, and they talk about catalpa trees. While all of this is going on, Rick's elderly mother might be dusting the guitars, answering the phone, or crunching numbers at a desk. Rick has no cell phone and doesn't use a computer; being a hardcore traditionalist seems to be who he is at his core. Or, maybe it's because he wants to put as much of his energy as possible into his guitars, which are the stars of the film. They are beautiful and unique, and they sound amazing.

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• Pleasant but the conversations were too contrived

  metaflixinc2019-05-22

  'Carmine Street Guitars' is a pleasant little documentary about a small guitar-making outfit in New York City's famed West Village but the conversations were a bit too scripted and the setups were a bit too contrived given the genre.