Get on up-the james brown story-like it or not?

[arr&bee]

How many have seen this movie?i saw it and liked the story the young actor portraying jb did a fantastic job,chadwick boseman is going to be big.

[soulster]

I finally watched this last night on blu-ray. Unfortunately, I only had the rental version, so I could not see the bonus material.

As entertaining as it may have been, it was woefully lacking in content, and really didn't give the viewer a sense of what James Brown was all about, what made him tick. The movie jumped around, played fast and loose with the facts and timelines, and left out tons of relevant things.

My point is that the movies about Ray Charles and Johnny Cash were more substantial and serious. This film treated Brown almost like a cartoon character. And, I don't know the full story with Bobby Byrd, but the movie made him look like a spineless wuss. Obviously, the producers had to wait until all of the principals were dead before they could make the movie.

[thomas96]

When I saw it was rated PG-13 I said to myself, ain't no way that'll properly portray JB's life. Haven't seen it yet. May decide too if it's on cable at some point but I won't pay money to see it.

[splanky]

Chadwick Boseman may indeed enjoy a huge career but....

I'll leave it at that......

[Jerry Oz]

I saw it and enjoyed it. But, to soulster's point, it's hard to put enough significant detail into two-hour movie about anyone's life, let alone someone who lived a large and very public life. I guess I can say that I liked it more when I watched it than when I thought about it later. Going from his breakdown to his attempt to reunite with Bobby Byrd was a jump between 20 years but occurred in one cut that went from him in jail to standing out in front of Byrd's house as if nothing happened in the meantime.

And the best biopics are those which show both sides of human character 'Ray' and 'Walk the Line' shows how flawed Ray Charles and Johnny Cash were. It's common knowledge that James Brown was one of the biggest dicks on record but the movie failed to display how bad he was reputed to be, even while showing him stiffing his band out of money or casting Byrd aside for having the nerve to consider a solo career.

But they could make three movies about him and still lack detail, so I give them credit for trying. I thought Bozeman knocked it out of the park, though. When they announced the movie, I wondered how he could portray James Brown after Eddie Murphy's impressions made his vocal problems into a massive joke. Bozeman walked the line between respectful portrayal and caricature, which could not have been easy.

[splanky]

I never expect a biopic to be a full complete and totally accurate account of any one person's
life and career but I do hope that it will give at least a valid portrait of that subject from whatever point of view it decides to take. Even the films I've enjoyed like Ray have glossed
over things I've felt what were major elements of his or her story. Ray played up RC's liking
of country music but side stepped the fact that he was a serious Jazz musician. It would probably take 3 or 4 two hour movies to tell a almost complete story of James Brown as a
singer, musician and iconic influence in American and world music but I didn't expect that.
Get On it reduced him to a footnote. BTW, The Flames were Byrd's group before JB basically
took it over...

[Jerry Oz]

They actually showed your last point in the movie. And of course you are correct on all points. The limited time for movies requires that the film makers take liberties in order to paint a broad picture in a short time. Typically, you'll find that people are made into composite characters so that five or six influential people are represented by one character in the film. Frequently, six or eight kids are written out of the script and you leave thinking that the character only had one kid.

And it goes without saying that we are all flawed. Directors have to be careful not to make someone too much of a bad guy or too much of a saint. That's hard to do because we are all both in the eyes of others. 'Get On Up' was like a Cliff's Notes version of a story that many knew and while entertaining, it won't satisfy anybody who wanted to know something new about the Godfather.

[Soul Sister]

No movie could cover someone's life & career in less than 2 hours. What bothered me is the part of his ex family controlled what was put in the movie leaving key people out.
Soulster, Bobby was neither a coward or a wuss, James was a back-biting snake in the grass. I know their story from the horses' mouth.

As far as Ray's movie goes, there were lies that defamed people's character, that simply were not true. David Newman was hurt by that movie, he never turned Ray onto heroin.
As far as Mary Ann busting out Ray's windshield is pure fantasy, it never happened. This movie lacked full history too.

The Temptations movie as we all know had a lot of lies and false images.

The best true story in recent years for me was "Lackawanna Blues" written by actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson about his real life mother and the era of his growing up in the atmosphere of his mother's boarding house with all the real life characters. It had great actors too S. Epatha Merkerson, Terrence Howard, Lou Gossett, Jr., Delroy Lindo, Ernie Hudson, Yasiin Bey [[Mos Def), Jimmy Smits, Ruben himself, etc.....................

S.S.
***

[Jerry Oz]

Thanks, Soul Sister. The problem with any art form, especially film making is that it comes from the creator's biased perspective and will leave some stuff out, put some stuff in, or change the truth in order to make it go down easier or more gritty than it really was for storytelling purposes.

Sometimes, like in 'Cadillac Records', the creator just uses a name, a couple of sketchy details, and makes up everything else. It's like the same point of view [[we all see things differently) that can make music great is capable of ruining a biographical film. Even autobiographical films can be full of BS when the driving force casts himself in a more positive light than perhaps he should [[see 'The Temptations').

We all have blemishes; there's nothing wrong with that. Our stories are no less compelling to reveal them. Hell, if you don't want to show something that's truthful, don't show anything.

[timmyfunk]

A whitewash from start to finish.

To be continued....