Lego Pharrell. Robbie Williams as a monkey. Are music movies OK?

A little ways into Pavements, Alex Ross Perry’s documentary about the influential indie-rock band Pavement, lead singer Stephen Malkmus gets the news that the group is to be the subject of a Hollywood biopic. There’s just one problem, Malkmus points out: “Has there ever been a good movie about a rock band?” The good news for Malkmus, as well as the band’s fans, is that Range Life: A Pavement Story, which stars Stranger Things’ Joe Keery as the lanky, cryptic front man, isn’t real—nor is Malkmus’ quote, or the article it appears in. There’s not much of the “real” Range Life in Pavements, but we do get a peek at one particularly dramatic scene, during which the words For Your Consideration periodically flash on the screen. According to Sasha Weiss, who wrote an extensive article about the movie for the New York Times Magazine, their objections come down to the fear that the film, which includes an account by one of Prince’s ex-girlfriends of him repeatedly punching her in the face, “will get Prince ‘canceled,’ and devalue the estate’s bottom line.” Although Weiss called the nine-hour cut a “cursed masterpiece,” she concluded that, at this point, there is “no indication that the film will ever come out.” Elton John: Never Too Late has no such issues, even though it depicts its subject as a long-term cocaine addict who spent his years as the world’s biggest pop star in a haze of self-loathing and anonymous sex.