Posts Tagged Biopic
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August 14, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Mr. Dynamite – The Rise of James Brown: DVD
Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown Director: Alex Gibney HBO/Universal Music Group Alex Gibney’s great skill as documentary-maker – apart from his speed and ability to work on several projects simultaneously – is in unearthing the hard-to-find/previously-unseen footage. Here with his “Dynamite” profile of the making of James Brown it would be a good […]Archive
July 21, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Born To Be Blue: Film
Born To Be Blue Director: Robert Budreau New Real Films/Lumanity Productions/Black Hangar Studios This impressionistic biopic of Chet Baker largely succeeds where the other recent impressionistic biopic of a legendary jazz trumpeter was just ludicrous, insulting, absurd. So why does Born To Be Blue work? For a start it actually makes sense. Miles Ahead played […]Archive
July 17, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Miles Ahead: Film
Miles Ahead Director: Don Cheadle Bifrost Pictures/Miles Davis Properties, LLC/Sony Pictures Classics In a boldly absurd almost blindly idiotic move Don Cheadle decides to simply invent a story for his Miles Davis impersonation. Here we have Cheadle as a more than passable Miles (not as great as some would tell you, but certainly as decent […]Archive
May 11, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
Nina: Film
Nina Director: Cynthia Mort Ealing Studios Entertainment/Londinium Films In a new low for the music biopic Nina makes the recent James Brown-mess, Get On Up feel like Coal Miner’s Daughter. The film, shot four years ago and sitting on the shelf all this time, had to weather a storm of bad publicity around the choice of […]Archive
April 19, 2016 by Simon Sweetman
The End of The Tour: DVD
The End of the Tour Director: James Ponsoldt Lionsgate One of the chief concerns about this movie, before anyone had seen it, seemed to be the casting of Jason Segel as David Foster Wallace – it’s a non-issue, for two reasons. First of all he acquits himself just fine. Secondly, and far more importantly, it’s […]Archive
September 1, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
The Vinyl Countdown # 1046
V/A, Coal Miner’s Daughter [OST] (1980) I saw the film a while ago now, maybe ten years back, something like that – and what a great biopic, surely one of the best. The soundtrack is a new acquisition, a fairly beat-up second-hander, but it plays well enough. Cover’s a bit grubby, but so what. It’s […]Archive
August 25, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
20,000 Days on Earth: Film
20,000 Days on Earth Directors: Iain Forsyth, Jane Pollard Corniche Pictures/BFI/Film4 Here is Nick Cave – running about his day, his 20,000th day on earth – here is Nick Cave in a film that is part impressionistic doco, part subverted feature film, it’s the rock-doc as prose-poem, and it’s been co-created with love (and – […]Archive
August 19, 2014 by Simon Sweetman
Get On Up: Film
Get On Up Director: Tate Taylor Imagine Entertainment/Jagged Films/Wyolah Films This James Brown biopic has been on the cards a while – and then it just seemed to arrive, no real fanfare. And it’s hard to know what to say really – for is it a fairly typical, mostly terrible biopic? And are all Hollywood-infused […]Archive
July 3, 2014 by Simon Sweetman