Saturday, April 17, 2010
GODPARENTS
Today's movie was the documentary
This is basically an embellished concert tape of the concert/festival held in Zaire 35 years ago when Ali fought Foreman.
It is the second film taken from that event. The first is When We Were Kings and that is mostly about the fight.
The musical footage, long held in storage, is very good. There is the young James Brown. Still able to send it home and do the splits. He dominates the film.
There is Miriam Makeba clicking along.
Here we have Hugh Masekela and there are the Spinners. I actually enjoyed their act more than any. How amazing.
Now BB King. Bill Withers.
All in their prime.
The problem with this film is not the fidelity of the recordings or photography. It is the insertion of a lot of yakking by the producers and crew and others who (all white, incidentally) probably have control of the film footage and use it for a little "remember when".
There is also a lot of blather by Ali which, by now, has gotten a bit shopworn. I would watch the When We Were Kings companion for all that stuff.
Soul Power is less than 2 hours long. There is no need for padding. Or maybe there wasn't that much actual concert footage in the first place.
Nevertheless, with a wise hand on the FF you can skip the shit and hear/see the music. Some of it is stunning. Actually, a lot of it is stunning.
So here is one of those films that I give a 5 to the half that is music and a sad 1 to the part that is devoted to "atmosphere". I am reminded of the Woodstock film which was able, because of the long presentation, to put the arrangements and backstage stuff in some perspective. Here it is ponderous.
So we end up with 5+1-2=3 out of Netflix5.
Labels: best films, music
