20 FEET FROM STARDOM (2013)

20-Feet-from-Stardom

This won the Oscar for best doc in 2014, it was up against The Act of Killing (the rightful winner), Cutie and the Boxer (not seen yet), The Square (not seen) and Dirty Wars, and is probably the biggest crowd pleaser amongst them, though not the best of them.

Focusing on the backing singers and the wealth of talent that lays there; what it takes to break away from the sidelines and hit the big time and how it may just be in the alignment of the stars along with the personal journey of each individual.

This is an entertaining documentary that raises itself slightly above a VH1 doc by having some very different, incredibly talented women who, by all intents and purposes, should have been massive stars.

It features amongst many others, Darlene Love and her working relationship with Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound, Merry Clayton with her famous duet with Mick Jagger on Gimme Shelter, the incredible Lisa Fischer and Tata Vega. But it gets diluted the more subjects that are featured and therein lies the problem.

This is one for the music lovers and is pedestrian at best; entertaining but not as incisive or in depth as it could have been.

3/5

BUY THE BLU RAY DVD HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE

THIS IS THE END (2013)

this-is-the-end-cover

A brilliant premise, a talented cast all playing themselves, or a twisted version, the opportunity for many belly laughs are there, so why doesn’t it work?

Here’s why.

If you have a great idea but decide to pad it out with three music videos, it states clearly that you don’t have enough material to fill a film.

Having the Apatow set playing themselves during the end of the world is a cool concept but be wary, it could easily turn out cheap and tacky. Fortunately for them the majority of the scenes work, it just needed more polishing to lift it above a home movie that they could show to their mates.

Directed by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and featuring a some very funny actors, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, Michael Cera, and a bunch of cool cameos: Paul Rudd, Martin Starr, Kevin Hart, Aziz Ansari and David Krumholtz who gets by far the funniest scene (”you can hold onto my full weight?”).

There are plenty of very funny moments in this film; it just doesn’t gel as a whole; it’s half-baked. Rogen and Goldberg made a lot of money with this film and some would say that is success, in a way, yes, but artistically?

Ever since Freaks and Geeks the Apatow alumni have been making some very funny films and so the bar is high. Pineapple Express, Superbad, hell even Knocked Up, all better films than This is the End. But for every Superbad there are several Observe and Reports/Bad Neighbours.

The rapture ending didn’t work, far too Christian and shoe-horned in an otherwise unrelated world.

Finally, The Backstreet Boys. Oh dear. So unnecessary. It smacks of rich kids getting to live out their fantasies in a public arena and shouldn’t be allowed. If this was some Z-lister film that no-one but the teens would see, then fair play, but more should be expected from talent such as these.

3/5 (For the laughs, when they happened)

BUY THE FILM ON BLU RAY HERE

DOWNLOAD THE FILM ON iTUNES HERE