this makes too much sense so....and you know what that means
James Brown - Get On Up Movie
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this makes too much sense so....and you know what that means
I just watched it. It was a pretty good movie, very entertaining. Question...I was unclear on Tika Sumpter's character. Was she a sidechick or just a jealous back up singer?
This and why Bobby Byrd was so emotional during the "Try Me" acapella were poorly explained to the audience imo.
Overall a good film. Not a great film for someone going in wanting to learn everything about the man and his bio. But a great film to honor the person and inspire you enough to want to go home and find out more about him your self. A little whitewashed, but entertaining. I didn't like the directors decision to jump back and forth in the timeline as it fragmented things a bit for me, and I wasn't a huge fans of the closeups and talking to the audience but I enjoyed it overall. I think Chadwick did a great job with portraying the character. I would have liked if I left the theater knowing something about the man I didn't know when I entered but whatever.
You see the movie X you learn and find out about the man. The movie Ray, Tuskegee, Charlie Parker etc. you get to watch what you already know about them and learn some things that weren't in the text books. I don't feel I got anything from this movie besides a glorified music video. I like James and have a bunch of his songs but shit I grew up in the 80's. I wanted to learn stuff I didn't know about him from this movie and didn't.
X was developed from the autobiography of Malcolm X.
Tuskegee took alot of creative license
Most movies are just like this one and if you think what you saw was completely factual then you will have misinformation.
Lady Sings The Blues
Dream girls
Cadillac Records
The Temptations
42
Great White Hope
Brians Song
Roots
and on and on.
they are movies based on actual events.......keyword is based
But James Brown son and Sharpton who were close to the living man support this movie as a pretty accurate depiction.
But as with most movies facts are loose for the sake of entertainment.
this song by James Brown was on one of his last albums he ever made...it was played all the time here in sc...it was nice too 
i know bgol older cats from the south remember this one...
hard bodies soft emotions
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XN3uCivpTkI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
i know bgol older cats from the south remember this one...
hard bodies soft emotions
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XN3uCivpTkI?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
FIRST OFF...
I WENT TO SEE IT THE FIRST DAY IT CAME OUT....
I have watched James Brown all my life...all his videos...all of them...
He sung im black and im proud in front of a white audience and had them mfs singing the chorus with him...now in the movie they didnt show that int he movie...why because it would have showed not only a powerful black man at the time but it would have also showed those who didnt know him how bold he was to even put that out and sing in in front of a white audience
for those who didnt know...this is what im talking about
the story line was trash... I know about his music... I wanted to know about the man...but instead we only get segments of his parents being dysfunctional. They show lil black kids at a damn country club fighting and james brown gets hit falls down and see the band playing and all of a sudden mother popcorn is playing?
You cant even compare this to Ray.... that is a insult... the camera work done with Ray, the cast and the story line was well played out. Get on Up is a broadway play for the big screen but plays James Brown music so we are suppose to give it pass....BULLSHIT
Mick Jagger...put his money up...bravo... does that give him a pass to allow bullshit to me made.
I WENT TO SEE IT THE FIRST DAY IT CAME OUT....
I have watched James Brown all my life...all his videos...all of them...
He sung im black and im proud in front of a white audience and had them mfs singing the chorus with him...now in the movie they didnt show that int he movie...why because it would have showed not only a powerful black man at the time but it would have also showed those who didnt know him how bold he was to even put that out and sing in in front of a white audience
for those who didnt know...this is what im talking about
the story line was trash... I know about his music... I wanted to know about the man...but instead we only get segments of his parents being dysfunctional. They show lil black kids at a damn country club fighting and james brown gets hit falls down and see the band playing and all of a sudden mother popcorn is playing?
You cant even compare this to Ray.... that is a insult... the camera work done with Ray, the cast and the story line was well played out. Get on Up is a broadway play for the big screen but plays James Brown music so we are suppose to give it pass....BULLSHIT
Mick Jagger...put his money up...bravo... does that give him a pass to allow bullshit to me made.
James Brown use to charge 99cent for kids under 12, my mom is a fanatic...she echoed this same sentiment.
Bottom Line:
You want to see more people of color on the big screen who are NOT licking boots, doing homo stuff, or are slaves?? Then support movies like this now.
When there is a profit made, it can always be remade...just like a lot of these alien/supehero fantasy flicks.
Movie was not that bad. The POV was OK, though I wanted more depth as to how he beganin his area, the TRUE influence Little Richard had on him (props for the 2-minutes rep time they had for him), the racism he faced as an ENTERTAINER, as well as his final days.
But still, not a bad movie at all.
You want to see more people of color on the big screen who are NOT licking boots, doing homo stuff, or are slaves?? Then support movies like this now.
When there is a profit made, it can always be remade...just like a lot of these alien/supehero fantasy flicks.
Movie was not that bad. The POV was OK, though I wanted more depth as to how he beganin his area, the TRUE influence Little Richard had on him (props for the 2-minutes rep time they had for him), the racism he faced as an ENTERTAINER, as well as his final days.
But still, not a bad movie at all.
I saw this movie and I have so many good things to say about this movie but then as I read through the thread - the nitpicking of the movies from other posters make me want to respond to each and every issue raised but at the end of the day - no one will be convinced away from their position.
Let me say this one thing, non linear story structures are not a new thing nor is it something that should take away from the enjoyment of the movie. Also the use of symbolism throughout the movie makes it more than a simple story but an allegory on the impact of race and poverty on the creative process of a tortured genius. To put it simply James Brown had PTSD and never had the ability to deal with it and it affected him his entire life.
Let me say this one thing, non linear story structures are not a new thing nor is it something that should take away from the enjoyment of the movie. Also the use of symbolism throughout the movie makes it more than a simple story but an allegory on the impact of race and poverty on the creative process of a tortured genius. To put it simply James Brown had PTSD and never had the ability to deal with it and it affected him his entire life.
Bravo!
The gems and quotables in this doc are pure legion! Essential viewing!
Great post!
Very true.
Especially that scene where the white record exec is doing the 'mashed potato'.
The trailer totally misleads ppl what is really going on.
Wasn't disappointed because I expected watered down fuckery.
What I didn't expect was the story to be HORRIBLE.
how DA FUQ u gonna make a movie about James Brown and make it PG-13??
Non linear story structures isn't a new thing. But using it along with visual timedates was stupid, and will confuse the hell out of the audience (not to mention kill the arch of the story).
i.e. Showing the death of Dan Ackroyds character, then show him dancing backstage in a performance scene 10 minutes LATER.
And the so-called symbolism was really an irrelevant choice that did nothing to bring depth or move the story along. It was bad storytelling bro, just bad.
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Bravo!
The gems and quotables in this doc are pure legion! Essential viewing!
Great post!
Agreed. and I saw the movie first then the documentary. While the execution isn't the greatest, it touched om 80% of the tpoics on that documentary.
Also:
http://www.eurweb.com/2014/08/charles-bobbit-my-years-with-the-godfather-of-soul-a-must-readwatch/
“You know James Brown scored the movie “Black Caesar,” with Fred Williamson without even watching the movie. I told him about it and based on what I told him about the movie, Mr. Brown scored it. I also saw the current movie, “Get On Up,” and even though they left me out and other people close to Mr. Brown out, I thought it was a good movie. It’s more about his music than his life but I encourage people to see it.”
http://www.eurweb.com/2014/07/they-love-it-james-browns-family-is-raving-about-get-on-up-watch/
Non linear story structures isn't a new thing. But using it along with visual timedates was stupid, and will confuse the hell out of the audience (not to mention kill the arch of the story).
i.e. Showing the death of Dan Ackroyds character, then show him dancing backstage in a performance scene 10 minutes LATER.
And the so-called symbolism was really an irrelevant choice that did nothing to bring depth or move the story along. It was bad storytelling bro, just bad.
We will have to agree to disagree - like these two often did
I take it a lot of you here have not read THIS...The Whitewashing of James Brown
There were several meetings. Eight white men and two white women. Was this a meeting of the Mormon Glee Club? The New White Citizens Council? Perhaps a Klan meeting? No. That meeting was the creative team for the new James Brown movie, "Get On Up."
Welcome to post-racial Hollywood where if you host a fundraiser for Barack Obama, you're freed of the burden of hiring black writers. And where a rich white producer can jokingly declare, "I'm black."
Indeed, all the producers, writers, and the director of the James Brown movie are white. No black people were hired until a few weeks before the cameras started rolling, the actors. In fact, several of the people involved in this whitewash are British. The Brits have a fetish for black projects.
This is the Donald Sterling message: don't bring them to the game. There are over fifty black iconic biopics and black-themed movies in development in Hollywood, including multiple Richard Pryor projects, five Martin Luther King projects, multiple Marvin Gaye projects, and civil rights projects, and only one or two have an African American writer. Our entire history has been given over to white writers.
When the late David Wolper was producing "Roots" thirty-something years ago, he hired no black writers. When asked why, he was quoted as saying: "They're too close to the material." I guess we're still too close.
This Hollywood apartheid against the African American writer could be understood if the writers being hired were of such quality as to be beyond reproach artistically. With rare exception, that is not the case. Sift through the morass, and you'll find a group of hacks, insiders, and drinking buddies. The executives are trading our icons around like baseball cards.
How do these insiders, pals of the executives, become experts on black culture overnight? Wikipedia. In case you didn't know, the entire black experience is on Wikipedia. Here is a typical day in Hollywood. Agent calls a writer, tells him he got him an interview for "this black guy who was really important." The writer says cool, goes to the wiki pages, memorizes them, takes the meeting and wings his "knowledge" of the black icon. That's it. He gets the job.
You see, the first thing people do in this town before hiring someone is look in the mirror. What I see in front of me is beauty, brains, and competence, Oh, and hipness. Yep, that's who I'm gonna hire: me!
If ever a project required black creative involvement, it was this one. James Brown was the blackest entertainer in the history of America. The blackest. There was nothing integrationist about his art, at all. He never tried to crossover. You had to come to him. He was iconic and not just musically.
And yet, where did producer Brian Grazer hire to embody this blackest of black men? Three white writers, two of them from England. Then more producers were added, all white, and a white director, who has said that he sees this as a movie about singing and dancing. Bingo. Now we're ready to make a black movie. It doesn't matter a bit that one of the producers is a famous rock star who played with Brown a few times and lifted some of his moves. James Brown belongs to us, the black masses, and for us to be excluded from the creative team that made this movie is an obscenity. I'm aware that Spike Lee was involved briefly, but the finished product looks like a Mitt Romney family reunion.
Let me tell you who James Brown was, really, not the Wikipedia James Brown.
He was a civil rights icon. Put James in the pantheon of the most impactful black men of the 20th century, and he would not be out of place. How can I make such an assertion? One song: "I'm Black and I'm Proud."
Before that song, if you wanted to start a fight with a man of color, all one had to do was call him black. Up until the mid-sixties, we were trying define ourselves: not colored anymore, now Negro. But black was not something we called ourselves. And along comes this little man and proudly states, "I'm black and I'm proud!" He took the thing that the oppressor used to bludgeon us and made it a weapon of pride for us.
That song caught on like wildfire. One day, our heads were down, the next day, our heads were held high, proud of who we were. We had all these groups, civil rights groups, Muslims, Panthers, but it was JB who gave us our swagger. That song lifted up an entire race! He put us on his back and carried us. Dr. King gave us our rights. JB gave us our dignity. Civil rights icon? You better believe it.
When that song came on the radio, cars stopped in the street. People turned up their radios, came out of their houses, and sang along with it; radio stations put it in a loop and played it for hours. The next day people greeted each other with "Hello, black man!" "My black brother." JB made black beautiful overnight.
But the focus of this movie is singing and dancing. When we are kept out of the room, that is what you end up with, a pale Wikified imitation of what a great man was.
And yet, if someone decided to do the Gloria Steinem story, you better believe women would be involved; they'd have to be. Can you fathom ten men sitting in a room, male writers, directors, and producers all staring at their navels grunting: "I am woman, hear me roar"? But that won't happen because people in this town respect women.
It's too late to save JB, but maybe there's hope to save the other icons from the Wiki-fueled humiliation of having their stories told by people who have no organic connection to us or our struggle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregor...types=og.likes
There were several meetings. Eight white men and two white women. Was this a meeting of the Mormon Glee Club? The New White Citizens Council? Perhaps a Klan meeting? No. That meeting was the creative team for the new James Brown movie, "Get On Up."
Welcome to post-racial Hollywood where if you host a fundraiser for Barack Obama, you're freed of the burden of hiring black writers. And where a rich white producer can jokingly declare, "I'm black."
Indeed, all the producers, writers, and the director of the James Brown movie are white. No black people were hired until a few weeks before the cameras started rolling, the actors. In fact, several of the people involved in this whitewash are British. The Brits have a fetish for black projects.
This is the Donald Sterling message: don't bring them to the game. There are over fifty black iconic biopics and black-themed movies in development in Hollywood, including multiple Richard Pryor projects, five Martin Luther King projects, multiple Marvin Gaye projects, and civil rights projects, and only one or two have an African American writer. Our entire history has been given over to white writers.
When the late David Wolper was producing "Roots" thirty-something years ago, he hired no black writers. When asked why, he was quoted as saying: "They're too close to the material." I guess we're still too close.
This Hollywood apartheid against the African American writer could be understood if the writers being hired were of such quality as to be beyond reproach artistically. With rare exception, that is not the case. Sift through the morass, and you'll find a group of hacks, insiders, and drinking buddies. The executives are trading our icons around like baseball cards.
How do these insiders, pals of the executives, become experts on black culture overnight? Wikipedia. In case you didn't know, the entire black experience is on Wikipedia. Here is a typical day in Hollywood. Agent calls a writer, tells him he got him an interview for "this black guy who was really important." The writer says cool, goes to the wiki pages, memorizes them, takes the meeting and wings his "knowledge" of the black icon. That's it. He gets the job.
You see, the first thing people do in this town before hiring someone is look in the mirror. What I see in front of me is beauty, brains, and competence, Oh, and hipness. Yep, that's who I'm gonna hire: me!
If ever a project required black creative involvement, it was this one. James Brown was the blackest entertainer in the history of America. The blackest. There was nothing integrationist about his art, at all. He never tried to crossover. You had to come to him. He was iconic and not just musically.
And yet, where did producer Brian Grazer hire to embody this blackest of black men? Three white writers, two of them from England. Then more producers were added, all white, and a white director, who has said that he sees this as a movie about singing and dancing. Bingo. Now we're ready to make a black movie. It doesn't matter a bit that one of the producers is a famous rock star who played with Brown a few times and lifted some of his moves. James Brown belongs to us, the black masses, and for us to be excluded from the creative team that made this movie is an obscenity. I'm aware that Spike Lee was involved briefly, but the finished product looks like a Mitt Romney family reunion.
Let me tell you who James Brown was, really, not the Wikipedia James Brown.
He was a civil rights icon. Put James in the pantheon of the most impactful black men of the 20th century, and he would not be out of place. How can I make such an assertion? One song: "I'm Black and I'm Proud."
Before that song, if you wanted to start a fight with a man of color, all one had to do was call him black. Up until the mid-sixties, we were trying define ourselves: not colored anymore, now Negro. But black was not something we called ourselves. And along comes this little man and proudly states, "I'm black and I'm proud!" He took the thing that the oppressor used to bludgeon us and made it a weapon of pride for us.
That song caught on like wildfire. One day, our heads were down, the next day, our heads were held high, proud of who we were. We had all these groups, civil rights groups, Muslims, Panthers, but it was JB who gave us our swagger. That song lifted up an entire race! He put us on his back and carried us. Dr. King gave us our rights. JB gave us our dignity. Civil rights icon? You better believe it.
When that song came on the radio, cars stopped in the street. People turned up their radios, came out of their houses, and sang along with it; radio stations put it in a loop and played it for hours. The next day people greeted each other with "Hello, black man!" "My black brother." JB made black beautiful overnight.
But the focus of this movie is singing and dancing. When we are kept out of the room, that is what you end up with, a pale Wikified imitation of what a great man was.
And yet, if someone decided to do the Gloria Steinem story, you better believe women would be involved; they'd have to be. Can you fathom ten men sitting in a room, male writers, directors, and producers all staring at their navels grunting: "I am woman, hear me roar"? But that won't happen because people in this town respect women.
It's too late to save JB, but maybe there's hope to save the other icons from the Wiki-fueled humiliation of having their stories told by people who have no organic connection to us or our struggle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregor...types=og.likes
Just re-watched this,another great film...
you couldn't have just posted the link to this which is already posted ?
I saw it Saturday and when it ended I had the WTF did I just see reaction. Then again over the years when I would see or hear something from James Brown that I hadn't seen before and many times I also had the same reaction so maybe they got more right than they did wrong. Also like a previous poster said I DIDN'T AGREE with the PG-13 rating either. I thought Ray was an R rating but it turns out it was PG-13 as well. So this fuckery has been going on for awhile. Just for reference "Lady Sings the Blues" was rated R. PG-13 is more left over Bullshit from the Reagan Era. This film isn't for everyone and its helped in large part by a strong cast and a great performance by Boseman.
If you think the film is white washed you can blame the Brown family for that as well. They may have made a conscious choice about how this story would be told and since they control his music and image they ultimately have the final say.
If you think the film is white washed you can blame the Brown family for that as well. They may have made a conscious choice about how this story would be told and since they control his music and image they ultimately have the final say.
can't compare Lady Sings the Blues since that was over 40 years ago...
today they cuss on network tv and show some nudity..
in fact Fritz the cat was a cartoon and it was rated X when it came out.
Also I don't think the family was a part of the movie....Although his son is on a book tour he has said he wasn't contacted for the movie..
Maybe his daughters were IDK
I would have had I known this was already here..my bad G
The Godfather of Soul's life story is given the big screen treatment in Get On Up.Hopping back and forth through time the film displays Jame's Brown's harsh and dirt poor upbringing by his parents who's relationship was volatile and then some.It also points out how Brown was a perfectionist and gave his all in his stage performances and recordings.Sometimes his arrogance alienated people and his band members particularly his long suffering best friend Bobby Byrd(Nelsan Ellis very good ) Chadwick Boseman is great as Brown i really applaud his hard work in getting down Brown's dance moves and performances.I wish the film had more emotional weight.The scenes of his upbringing and then meeting up with his mother (Viola Davis) years later hit all the right emotional notes but other parts of Brown's life are just slightly touched on.I wanted to see more of his married life with Dee-Dee" Jenkins(Jill Scott),and his relationship's with his children.So much just felt watered down,but i guess it's hard to sum up a man's life who was the greatest entertainer of all time in 2 hours and 20 minutes.
I really still hope to see Spike Lee's take on the life of James Brown.
Scale of 1-10 an 8
I really still hope to see Spike Lee's take on the life of James Brown.
Scale of 1-10 an 8
Never Satisfied... You are...
Never Satisfied... Never Satisfied...
Never Satisfied... No...
Never Satisfied
I know I've given you all that I've could
No matter what I do to you it never good
I'm always doin' the best that I can
The way you make me feel I never understand
You don't appreciate anything I ever do
(No you don't appreciate the things I do)
All you do is complain, what's the matter with you
Never Satisfied... You are...
Never Satisfied... Never Satisfied...
Never Satisfied... No...
Never Satisfied
Never Satisfied... Never Satisfied...
Never Satisfied... No...
Never Satisfied
I know I've given you all that I've could
No matter what I do to you it never good
I'm always doin' the best that I can
The way you make me feel I never understand
You don't appreciate anything I ever do
(No you don't appreciate the things I do)
All you do is complain, what's the matter with you
Never Satisfied... You are...
Never Satisfied... Never Satisfied...
Never Satisfied... No...
Never Satisfied
It is what it is, family intro into James Brown, It was not groundbreaking nor was it awful, It's just a decent movie with some above average acting, well worth to see Jill Scott's tits and his mom was the best acting in the film, her acting was RAW, she should have played James Brown
woulda been cool if Prince cameo as Little Richard
now the Hendrix movie is going to be trash
Purple Rain still remains to be one of the best biopics ever.
Spike Lee would of fucked it up, that old ass bum has lost his touch and is borderline senile, Spike Lee is old and fat, not as hungry or creative as he used to be
woulda been cool if Prince cameo as Little Richard
now the Hendrix movie is going to be trash
Purple Rain still remains to be one of the best biopics ever.
Spike Lee would of fucked it up, that old ass bum has lost his touch and is borderline senile, Spike Lee is old and fat, not as hungry or creative as he used to be
It is what it is, family intro into James Brown, It was not groundbreaking nor was it awful, It's just a decent movie with some above average acting, well worth to see Jill Scott's tits and his mom was the best acting in the film, her acting was RAW, she should have played James Brown
woulda been cool if Prince cameo as Little Richard
now the Hendrix movie is going to be trash
Purple Rain still remains to be one of the best biopics ever.
Spike Lee would of fucked it up, that old ass bum has lost his touch and is borderline senile, Spike Lee is old and fat, not as hungry or creative as he used to be
took my mom to see it yesterday, both of us left feeling like the movie was very entertaining. It was the best movie of the year to me so far. Being from Cincinnati and actually knowing members of his band personally probably made us like it more. But I thought the acting was top notch. I recommend everyone to see it, its a LOT better than 42
I liked it, but it seems like it was edited horribly. Some stuff could have been left out to include more important scenes and background information.
Also the movie should have come out later in the year.
Yeah I liked it, but didn't really care for the flashback scenes as a boy.
Chadwick did his thing.
Did they edit the shit out of her character?
Because she is too big of a actress to have such a minimal and insignificant part. Plus the way she was introduced was mad misleading.
I had to look up who she was. She was Yvonne Fair. Did they even say her name in the movie?
The way she was looking at James, and then all of a sudden he was married to the groupie in the audience, Jilly from Philly.
Also the movie should have come out later in the year.
Yeah I liked it, but didn't really care for the flashback scenes as a boy.
Chadwick did his thing.
Did they edit the shit out of her character?
Because she is too big of a actress to have such a minimal and insignificant part. Plus the way she was introduced was mad misleading.
I had to look up who she was. She was Yvonne Fair. Did they even say her name in the movie?
The way she was looking at James, and then all of a sudden he was married to the groupie in the audience, Jilly from Philly.
Just came from seeing this movie. Let me say that Chadwick Boseman & the guy that plays Lafayette will both win Golden Globes for this but I think Layfette might be the one that takes the Oscar home (Best Supporting Actor). His character was ESSENTIAL in the telling of this story, moreso than James Brown himself. Boseman will be nominated though.
The biggest flaw the movie had was that they left a lot of storylines incomplete. I suspect that there will be a Director's Cut DVD/Blu-Ray & they had to cut a lot of scenes for the movie to get released.
Great movie, the story is the weak point, Chadwick was James Brown, especially when he was older & Lafayette did the damn thing.
The biggest flaw the movie had was that they left a lot of storylines incomplete. I suspect that there will be a Director's Cut DVD/Blu-Ray & they had to cut a lot of scenes for the movie to get released.
Great movie, the story is the weak point, Chadwick was James Brown, especially when he was older & Lafayette did the damn thing.
why the fucked title for the flick?
'i'm black and i'm proud'.
but subsequently marries white women.
'i'm black and i'm proud'.
but subsequently marries white women.
why the fucked title for the flick?
'i'm black and i'm proud'.
but subsequently marries white women.
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