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Get on Up
Really Great 66 Points 2014

Get on Up joins the pantheon of great rock biopics, memorializing James Brown as a seminal rockstar whose power, pomp and circumstances paved the way for the Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Sly & the Family Stone, hip-hop and every other form of funkable & funkadelic music. Get on Up gets on…

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WikChip Video James Brown ✫ Please, Please, Pleas...
Birdman (or The...
Really Great 83 Points 2014

Birdman touches many cinematic erogenous zones, making it a guilty treat – a smart one – for cinephiles. Alejandro Iñárritu’s showbiz takedown is also the best theatrically-set movie since, well, maybe forever. OK, not forever, but probably since All About Eve

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WikChip Video Such a Tease
Top Five
Very Good 83 Points 2014

Chris Rock scores a solid hit with Top Five by making his movie about himself. Well, not himself exactly, but an alter ego: a big-time comedian/moviestar. Andre Allen is his name and he’s going to marry Kim Kardashian on a Reality TV special. Oops, scratch that, he’s going to marry Gabrielle Un…

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WikChip Video Pretty Funny Overview of Top Five
Whiplash
Very Good 17 Points 2014

A must see for drummers and jazz fans, this movie will also please anyone who’s in for some good and tense drama. Miles Teller does a bang up job (pun intended) as the driven musician desperately trying to improve family and make it big. A little cheesy, but the antics are engrossing – so all i…

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What Happened, ...
Great 66 Points 2015

Nina Simone’s name and presence had occasionally penetrated my consciousness and always piqued my interest. Happily, this well done documentary finally brought her consequential music and politics alive.

Dubbed the High Priestess of Soul, she was a unique and uniquely transfixing artist, fusin…

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WikChip Video Liz Garbus on her Nina Simone doc
Born to Be Blue
Great 66 Points 2015

Chet Baker was bodaciously gifted. The James Dean of Jazz had his own style of cool, West Coast Swing.

Plus, he was supermodel handsome. Ethan Hawke – the moviestar who plays Chet Baker – isn’t nearly as handsome as Baker was, even allowing for Hawke being in his 40s, playing a music idol in h…

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WikChip Video The real Chet does real Born to Be Blue
Miles Ahead
Very Good 66 Points 2015

A moviestar who directs himself playing an iconic figure in a dramatic biopic has a fool for a leading-man. Don Cheadle provides proof of this as Miles Davis in Miles Ahead, following in the footsteps of Kevin Spacey, who stubbed his toe directing himself as Bobby Darin in the similarly flawe…

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WikChip Video Kind of Blue is Kind of Perfect
Danny Collins
Great 83 Points 2015

Al Pacino plays faux-rockstar Danny Collins like a demented Neal Diamond, complete with big singalong. Danny Collins instantly enters the Pacino Pantheon, Extreme Extrovert Wing. Rockstar Al is in the house.

The film is entirely high concept, albeit inspired by a real story: John Lennon wro…

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WikChip Video The Story of Danny Collins
Love & Mercy
Perfect 66 Points 2015

Love & Mercy is as much the story of one man’s mental illness as the story of his treasured musical genius. The man is Brian Wilson, the illness is schizoaffective disorder and the music is that of The Beach Boys. The movie is perfect, as inspired as a uniquely inspired Beach Boys song. _Good, …

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WikChip Video Whoopi & Nicolle rave over Brian Wilson
Keith Richards:...
Great 66 Points 2015

Less a concert film than a rockstar biography, Keith Richards: Under the Influence uses the structure of the old bluesman’s 2015 solo album as inspiration for a look back at his half-century career atop the pops.

“I ain’t a popstar anymore”, he says ironically if accurately. But he’s hardly …

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WikChip Video Keith @ the Press Conference, 9:20 in