Posts tagged Fred Melamed
Get On Up “Loud and Proud”
Aug 14th
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
GET ON UP is the story of James Brown, known at various times in his life and career as The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, The Godfather of Soul, or as he preferred to be called by strangers and even friends, “Mr. Brown.”
Brown is played remarkably by Chadwick Boseman, expect him to be nominated for an Academy Award in 2015, and don’t be surprised if he wins one for Best Actor.
TIME magazine said that “From 1958 to 1986, [Brown] landed 116 singles on BILLBOARD’s Hot 100 singles chart, and their irresistible grooves have since been sampled on about 4,000 songs.”
Mick Jagger is one of the producers of the film, and he has said that he copied a lot of Brown’s moves for his performances from what Brown did so remarkably on stage.
Incidentally, one of the most interesting scenes in the movie is when Brown and the Rolling Stones appeared together during a performance and Brown’s manager, played by Dan Aykroyd, tells Brown that the Stones will be has-beens within a year.
When Brown walks off stage after his performance, he passes Jagger, who has been watching Brown from the wings, and Brown says, “Welcome to America.”
The movie jumps around in time to show Brown’s life as a little boy being abused by his father and abandoned by his mother to how he developed an interest in music to how he formed his first singing group, The Famous Flames, with his lifelong friend Bobby Byrd to his many brushes with the law and many relationships with women, but mostly to his many performances of his most famous songs in various performances in various locations around the world.
The editing is almost surreal when it cuts between performances of the same song at different times and locations.
We see how Brown overcame the rules that had already been written in the music business and how they mistreated Black performers, we see how Brown broke away from the Famous Flames and became his own star performer, and we see how Brown mistreated his own band and those around him who loved him.
But most of all, we see outstanding performances that earned him the right to be called “The Hardest Working Man in Show Business.”
GET ON UP can bring tears to your eyes.
Get On Up – Movie Trailer
Aug 1st
In his follow-up to the four-time Academy Award (R)-nominated blockbuster The Help, Tate Taylor directs 42’s Chadwick Boseman as James Brown in Get on Up. Based on the incredible life story of the Godfather of Soul, the film will give a fearless look inside the music, moves and moods of Brown, taking audiences on the journey from his impoverished childhood to his evolution into one of the most influential figures of the 20th century. Boseman is joined in the drama by Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Nelsan Ellis, Lennie James, Tika Sumpter, Jill Scott and Dan Aykroyd.
“In a World…” Is Too Amateurish
Sep 20th
“Too Amateurish”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
In a World… takes its title from the opening words made famous by legendary voiceover artist Don LaFontaine from the many promos and movie previews he recorded in Hollywood.
Lake Bell wrote, directed, and stars as Carol Solomon in this film about the voiceover industry in Hollywood, which we are told is sexist, in that very few women are used as voiceover artists.
Now, we know how Hollywood likes to make movies about itself, but if most of those self-absorbed movies are about as interesting as insiders inspecting their own belly buttons, this one about an aspect of Hollywood that is less known than making films themselves is, could be dismissed as being so self-absorbed and self-indulgent that it is as interesting as insiders inspecting their belly buttons and their toes for toe jam.
However, it does contain some subplots that are intended to make the film more interesting, such as the lousy way that Carol’s father treats her and her older sister, Danielle.
For example, at the beginning of the movie Carol is living at home with her widowed father, who comes home one day and tells Carol, “Jamie is going to be moving in, you’re going to have to find another place to live.”
Jamie is Sam’s girlfriend, and she is the stereotypical dumb blonde bimbo, a character included in movies written by lazy writers to get some cheap laughs.
So, Carol, who makes her living as a vocal coach, moves in with her sister, who works as a concierge at a fancy hotel.
However, Carol would like to break into the voiceover business, where Sam is well known and respected as a voiceover artist.
A search is on for a voiceover artist to record the promos for an upcoming series of films known as The Amazon Games, and Carol would like to get that gig, knowing that her father desperately wants that job himself.
Then there are other subplots involving Louis, an engineer at the recording studio where Carol works, who would like to go out with Carol, but he is too shy to ask, and a guest at the hotel where Danielle works is interested in Danielle, which causes problems in Danielle’s personal life.
The main plot and all the subplots are like belly buttons and toe jam.
In a World… is too amateurish.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
