20 Feet From Stardom

[Beate]

I am confused today - I kept thinking I was seeing Starred Up tonight. It's a wonder we rocked up at the correct cinema. Oh well, this also has "Star" in the name. Considering it has won an Oscar this morning and I couldn't get tickets myself it was strange to see it in a small, half-empty screen at the O2.

I am really sorry but I thought this was boring. I thought the film was about all kinds of background singers but they focused only on the voluptuous black female ones, the others didn't get a look-in. Why was the white singer for Sting so sidelined? We were provided with their names at the beginning but after that we just had to know who they all were and no real insight was given. I had never heard of any of them (which is probably the point of the documentary) but I felt that I did not really learn much as it was just soundbites plus a lot of oh so soulful singing. It didn't dig very deep, it was disjointed and tried to do too much (the black power salute, really?), ultimately achieving nothing.

It's only 90 minutes long but it felt like forever.

The one thing that fascinated me were Merry Clayton's huge nostrils. She looked like a lioness.

6/10

[kevinknapman]

Really enjoyed this. Though slightly dismissed by some perhaps at the Oscars last night as the film that won the award that should have gone to The Act of Killing, it turns out to be a fine and worthy winner in its own right.

With its conventional use of talking heads (no, not the band), it might not challenge the form of documentary film in the way Joshua Oppenheimer's does but tells an incredibly important part of music history. Highlighting the work of backup singers that is often overlooked, exploited and in some cases forgotten.

A great selection of archive footage certainly helps, from its opening use of Slippery People from Talking Heads' (yes, the band) concert movie Stop Making Sense onwards. Oh and of course those voices. Still impressive years later.
A little repetitive towards the end perhaps but that's a minor gripe. Highly recommended.

[RAZORBACK]

Despite it taking a while for me to really get into this I thought it was pretty solid.

I recognised Darlene Love as soon as she made an appearance but just couldn't remember where I'd seen her before ( ) and thought her's was the most interesting story out of the individual backing singers that they focused on.

Overall this was a decent & quite enlightening documentary that did enough to get a 7/10 from me...

[baty]

Had quite a few walk outs in Cardiff, mostly from young people who probably didn't recognise any of the groups let alone the backing singers.

I did enjoy the film though I too wondered where the white backing singers' story were. Maybe the title could accurately depict the content.

The voices were the star of the show and boy could these singers still belt out a song at the drop of a hat! I thought the comments from one person about the 'tuning' of the modern wannabes to make them sound as if they can sing in key saddened me. Nothing new I know but what was new was that this tuning was taking away the job of the backing singer.

The story of them moving into the front spot to sing and how it didn't work out for them was heartbreaking.

7/10

[steve]

I really enjoyed this. I thought the voices were amazing. I think it was slightly let down (as others have mentioned) by only focussing on black singers.

[valda]

I thought they only focused on the Black female singers because that's what backing singers tended to be in the early days. The White artists at the time didn't have the voice so the black ladies who were mainly brought up singing in Church were brought in. Just my take on it.

I also got a bit confused with who the artists were, but found the whole thing fascinating 6.5/10

a few walk outs at Westfield as well

[LondonCityNights]

I thought it was alright... nowhere near as good as Act of Killing.

It just made me want to watch Stop Making Sense on a cinema screen mainly.

Full review:

http://www.londoncitynights.com/2014/03 ... ected.html

3/5*

[umral]

Winner of this year's Oscar for best documentary, but if you are expecting the exceptional you will be disappointed. I really enjoy rock docs, but this is not significantly more impressive and engrossing than (for example) the Storyville film on BBC2 last night about the Muscle Shoals sound. '20 Feet' is more episodic, making it seem longer than its 91 minute running time. It is diffcult to understand why the Academy preferred it to the compelling 'The Act of Killing', and the wry, tender and amusing 'Cutie and the Boxer'. Lisa Fischer, though, is a revelation.

[alythonian]

Edinburgh was busy tonight and everyone stayed until the end of the credits.

I loved this as a music documentary. I could have quite happily sat and just listened with my eyes closed and let the voices weave their magic. As an amateur musician with many friends who've made the jump to professionals, I could totally empathise with the ladies (and gent) as to the whys and wherefors as to what they didn't have to have made it to the big time, or those that did and then fell back again. the stories, the songs, the voices it all blended and harmonised beautifully. Phil Spector - what a manipulating and horrid little man. His controlling of those girls and their contracts was pure evil. I know he's in jail for worse now, and it would seem he's found his place. I guess only since the Sony/George Michael trial have these things been allowed to now come to light on the contracts etc.

Simply beautiful. Loved it. About 1000% better than the Armstrong documentary.

[stuartboy]

Miss!