MOVIE REVIEW | 20 Feet From Stardom (2013)

“It’s up to you to perfect that gift that you’ve been given. Put your spirit into that song. Focus on the words that you are singing. Get into the experience that you are singing about and sing your heart out”.

Like any Academy Awards, there were very few surprises at the 2014 Oscars. Gravity won a shit load of awards like we all knew it would. The Wolf of Wall Street predictably won none, despite being the most mind blowing movie of the year. And Matthew McConaughey got the Best Actor nod that everyone saw coming. But there was one huge, infuriating surprise.

The Actor of Killing not winning for Best Documentary might be the biggest cock up the Academy has made since Dances With Wolves beat Goodfellas. It pissed me off so much that I automatically hated the movie that did win, sight unseen. But that’s unfair, so I thought I should actually watch 20 Feet From Stardom and give myself some legit reasons for dismissing it so readily.

MOVIE REVIEW | Muscle Shoals (2013)

“There are certain places where there is a feeling of energy”. – Jimmy Cliff.

Little engines that could always make a great subject for a documentary. Those small town stories, where its small town residents defy the odds and take on the big city moguls and money, beating them at their own game. And when that success involves some of the biggest names in music from the last half century or so, you know it’s going to be a story worth watching. Which is exactly what you get with Muscle Shoals.

The self proclaimed, but deservedly so, hit record capital of the world, Muscle Shoals is an otherwise unimposing small town in Alabama, on the banks of the Tennessee River. But ever since a local boy decided to build his own recording studio in the 50s, this otherwise unimposing small town in Alabama, on the banks of the Tennessee River, has cranked out countless hit songs in almost every genre.