Film Reviews: Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary and Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (Calgary Underground Film Festival)

By: Joseph Perry (Twitter - Uphill Both Ways Podcast)

Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary

Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary takes a fascinating look at the rock band The Zombies, perhaps best known to most for their classic single “Time of the Season” but a highly influential act on many musicians who came after their heyday. Director Robert Schwartzman interviews the surviving members of the band, which is still going strong — their latest album Different Game was released in March of this year — giving viewers an emotional, engaging inside look at The Zombies, from their early days as teenagers to their releasing successful British Invasion hits such as “She’s Not There” and “Tell Her No” in the 1960s, to their breakup before their album Odessey and Oracle featuring “Time of the Season” was released, to their solo endeavors (for example, keyboardist Rod Argent’s band Argent found success, including the hit single “Hold Your Head Up”), to their reuniting and being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, to today. 

Though the band’s members have seen their share of ups and downs in the music industry, ultimately Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary is a feel-good work that should open up the group to a whole new generation of listeners while pleasing longtime fans and affirming the band’s place in rock history. Plenty of performance clips and song clips round out this winning documentary.

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)

Growing up as a young rock music listener in the 1970s, I started to detect a pattern concerning album covers from some of my favorite works, such as UFO’s Obsession, Pink Floyd’s Animals, and AC/DC’s Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, to name but a mere few: the covers were credited to Hipgnosis. Director Anton Corbijn’s documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) takes a deep, fascinating dive into the world of the Hipgnosis art studio, which crafted those and many other classic album covers, and with the heyday of rock albums being in the 1970s, there are plenty of stories from that period to blow viewers’ minds. 

Audrey “Po”Powell and the late Storm Thorgerson were the founders of Hipgnosis, and the film tells the story of the duo’s unusual meeting, how they became the go-to artists for rock musicians looking for memorable cover art, their eventual parting of ways, and the legacy they have left. Powell and musicians such as Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, members of Pink Floyd, and others reminisce about how certain covers came to be and what it was like to work with regarding each other, while Thorgerson’s points of view are represented in archival clips. Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) should be considered required viewing for aficionados of the pinnacle era of rock album covers, rock music lovers, and anyone who appreciates art or who loves jaw-dropping stories. 

Hung Up on a Dream: The Zombies Documentary and Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) screened as part of Calgary Underground Film Festival, which took place in Calgary, Canada from April 20–30.

Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/). He also writes for the websites Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), B&S About Movies (bandsaboutmovies.com), Uphill Both Ways (ubwpodcast.com), The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict (gbvreviews.com), and Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom). 

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